The Confounded Mr. Valenti 353
On June 6th, MPAA Chairman Jack Valenti finally recorded a deposition to be used by the United States District Court in the case of the DVD CCA vs. 2600. The deposition is available here from Cryptome, and here on 2600's site. Wired has an article about the deposition here, as well. According to the phrase-counters at Wired, Mr. Valenti said "I don't know" 62 times, "I don't recall" 29 times, and "I'm not aware" 16 times. Interesting that Mr. Valenti makes all sorts of statements, but isn't actually aware of what's going on.
I'm suffocating in the cloud of irony (Score:2)
Mr. Valenti, for the past year, has made statement after statement through the MPAA as a signatory, or through articles for various news sources. These statements were most certainly in reference to DVD, DVD CCA, DeCSS, piracy, etc.
We know this because, we've ranted and carried on about them here on
Put this in perspective, I'm the happy owner of a Sony DVD deck. I have several films that I purchased before this hubbub started, but since then I've focused on independant stuff because I am in support of Eric Corley, and I am in support of Fair Use.
I also own a Creative Labs Encore kit for my PC. I purchased both players, and I purchase my DVDs just like any other upstanding consumer. Since DeCSS uses real decryption keys (found through reverse engineering if I recall correctly), it's not 'circumventing' CSS anymore than my Sony deck is.
I think the issue here is yes, they're scrambling to keep sales of their (expensive) DVD players from faltering, when there's the prospect of the money going elsewhere on the horizon for open standard hardware playing back a closed standard medium. Is that not monopolistic? Yes, I have a choice of licensed players from Sony, JVC, Toshiba, Panasonic, etc...but does the buck stop with those companies? How much does it cost a company to license CSS decryption for a player?
If he lobbied for DMCA to be signed into law, if he's had experience in the political field for 30 some odd years, and if he can go around speaking before congress...appearing to be an expert, how can they define him as a lay witness?
^^^^ curious
zerodvyd
Re:The media industry is dying (Score:4)
wow (Score:3)
MR. HERNDSTADT: My name is Raymond R. Brown.
if the guys giving the interview can't even figure out who they are, i doubt the subject will say anything all that interesting.
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Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:2)
Quite right. However, anyone else would be free to take your binary distribution and make as many copies of it as they chose, and give those away.
They might not get the source, but neither would you make any profit from the binaries. Where do you think Microsoft would be if the hardware vendors (and everyone else) didn't have to pay for Windows licenses?
Valenti seems to think DMCA trumps fair use (Score:5)
Here is the excerpt:
Q. If a student wants to do a term paper, let's say do a video presentation on the holocaust -- do 20 minutes on the holocaust, and wants to take two or three minutes from a DVD from Schindler's List to put into that holocaust presentation and she has to de-encrypt the DVD to do that, is that illegal?
(lawyer interference deleted)
A. The student could do that by getting an analog version of Schindler's List, because that's not encrypted.
Though Valenti and his lawyer clearly did not want him to express any legal conclusions, this clearly shows that he thinks that the DMCA overides fair use protection. He is clearly indicated that fair use applies to analog works but not to digital works. So the wuestion would be, if a work is never released in analog, is therefore never to be given fair use protection?
Since fair use is a constitutional right, upheld by the Supreme Court, and DMCA is merely a statute, I think we Mr. Valenti's legal conclusion that DMCA is unconstitutional, and should therefore be struck down by the Supreme Court!
Another lesser point is that Valenti is wrong when if he is trying to imply because the analog copy isn't encrypted, that the DMCA doesn't apply to it. Though not encrypted, and not digital, analog video tapes are encoded with MacroVision [macrovision.com] copy protection. Which I think the DMCA would still apply to, since it is likely added digitally to the tape. But IANAL either.
You know... (Score:3)
For a great many of his 'i don't know' he is simply being asked for the record whether or not he is aware of certain things.
As for whenever he is asked about something illegal... he re-states over and over again, that 'circumventing the encryption on a DVD is illegal according to DMCA, plain and clearly'.
The thing on trial here is really the DMCA, not the defendant.
As for 'fair use' and all that crap.. I had a thought.
First, 'fair use' does not mean 'absolute right to undertand and use any technical means necessary to make copies in whatever form you want', it simply means that you can't be prosecuted for what is construed as 'fair use' of a copyrighted work.
Copying a DVD digitally, for your own personal use, may be fair use, and having that copy is probably not illegal.
However, according to DMCA, circumventing the encryption *IS* illegal, and posessing the tool to do so is also illegal, even if the end product is not.
You know, what joe average is buying when he gets a dvd is a 'movie'. If you say in a court 'they can always make analog snippets of it in a classroom or whatever'.. they are right. If the 'product' that falls under copyright, as the people percieve it, is simply 'the movie'.
To us geeks, though.. the 'product' under copyright is a collection of bits, that when decrypted a certain way and run through the appropriate codec produces a movie. See the difference?
They are buying a movie.. we are buying bits.
So.. to us, fair use should extend to manipulating bits on the dvd.. I own the physical dvd and all it's bits outright, and I can do *whatever* I want with those bits in the privacy of my own home.
Malfeasance or Misfeasance (Score:2)
His lawyers not allowing him to answer questions of law is a more correct option, as is a simple, "No comment."
Re:filter needed (Score:2)
A steam box is an olde-tyme contraption that's used by artists and carpenters and such-like to bend wood; it gets your board all wet and steamy and then you just bend it however you want, and it dries and sets like that. In the context of Valenti's testimony, however, there's no telling; perhaps it's something that breaks encryption, and when it "dries," it sticks that way? It being a secret should tell you something...
Serious answer follows:
Bad transcript; it should have been "Streambox," which is a search engine for streaming media (audio, video, etc).
"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
Arrest that Valenti (Score:4)
He 'illegally downloaded' the film? Arrest that man!!!
Re:Fair use definitions (Score:2)
Re:Can anyone translate this? (Score:2)
Protecting what you own... (Score:2)
Citing from DVD (Score:3)
Present German law for example allows citations, under certain circumstances it is even possiible to use the whole work in question as citation.
If the film industry wants to have such a level of control over DVD that not even a citation is possible they clearly try too much.
Baloney at the Bass Tournament. (Score:3)
First:
2 THE COURT: That is persuasive only to a point. We
3 are now six weeks away from a trial. If they can't remotely,
4 as you suggest, prove the allegations they have made in this
5 case, embarrassment on the Internet is going to be the least
6 of their problems, because I am going to call this case, one
7 way or another. Obviously, listening to the two of you,
8 somebody is full of baloney. I won't have any hesitation
9 about saying who it is when I see the evidence. So, while I
10 understand this embarrassment notion, I understand both sides
11 are conducting as much of a public relations campaign as a
12 lawsuit, maybe more, but the game all stops next month.
Whew!
And later
24 MS. ABRUTYN: Even if that is the case, there are two
25 possible remedies. The first one is that your Honor could
1 rule the depositions shouldn't go forward in the first place,
2 in which case there would be nothing to have access to, if
3 Mr. Garbus is off on a fishing expedition.
4 THE COURT: I am not accusing him alone.
5 MS. ABRUTYN: Or if both sides are --
6 THE COURT: This is a bass tournament.
I like his sense of humor!
Re:Arrest that Valenti (Score:2)
Actually, I believe that if the individual obtained the evidence illegally, it will not be permissable in court. I seem to remember this from a case involving a reporting and the Chiquita Corporation. I think the reporter had a tape of phone conversations that supported his case, but unfortunately, the tape was obtained by breaking into a Chiquita office, and was therefore ruled inadmissable. I'm not 100% sure on this, but that's how I remember it. The type of case might have had something to do with it as well. I think the reporter was investigating some of Chiquita's business practices. Chiquita came off looking pretty evil, and probably would have had a serious problem if the tape had been admitted as evidence.
Just found the article.
http://www2.thecia.net/users/rnewman/ chiquita [thecia.net]
Question (Score:2)
How do they know that the film was ripped from a DVD? Couldn't someone have encoded a movie from a vhs tape? Did they clarify this in court? I don't know a lot about what can and cannot be done with a vhs tape and some sort of video capture equipment, so forgive me if this is a stupid question.
Re:Can anyone translate this? (Score:2)
Re:Garbus should have pressed this... (Score:2)
or, simply, 'I am not aware'.
I've never seen a worm squirm that much (Score:4)
The fact that their entire case lies behind a point of law surrounding whether or not it is "legal" to decrypt something that has been encrypted blantantly shows that their interest lies with articifcial control of a market.
His deposition makes it clear beyond any possible miss-interpretation that the purpose of the encryption is not to prevent copyright infrigment but to control what can be used to view a DVD.
Interestingly, if it is illegal to decrypt encrypted material, then perhaps we should all be suing the government for the actvities of the NSA and other government agencies. Or is that the rules of the game are different if you're the government?
Always going to be about who you know...but.... (Score:2)
The sooner that things like the RIAA die off the sooner you will find local bands getting success because they are actually good musicians, and not getting success because they have a manager that knows someone.
I am afraid it's always going to be about who you know. I got a copy of SuSE to learn linux simply because my friend Alex uses it and he's very experienced and happy to give me a hand when I'm stuck. And imagine if Linus T. was my next door neighbour...
I think CormacJ makes a good point about the problems with closed source knowledge, but people will always use their contacts and communicate to get things moving.
What we've got to do in the open source community is create a culture where even when money starts flowing dependent on knowledge, people still want to share that knowledge. Going to be interesting as linux moves (probably very soon) into being big commercial value to a lot of people...like people have said on slashdot before, there's goingto be a lot of pressure to pervert the spirit of GNU licences / open source terminology etc...
Re:Comments (Score:5)
No, this is not a fix. It can never be a fix. Copy protection does not work as a long term strategy. It can not work.
The reason is extremely basic and fundamental. The problem is that a protection-stripped product (the "warez" version) is intrinsically more valuable then the original, copy protected product, because you can do more with it. Specifically, you can do the very things that the copy protection tries to keep you from doing, whether it is backing it up, as in the Apple II days, or, as in the case of DVD, extracting and manipulating the raw program content.
As any copy protected technology becomes more and more interesting; as more and more material becomes available in that format, the interest in breaking that copy protection will also rise.
The average age of a successful copy-protection cracker appears to be about 16-18 years old. That's the age when you have enough free time, and enough focus to really dig deep into the details of a copy protection system
Cracking copy protection usually does not require sophisticated tools. It does not require advanced training. Mostly, it requires extreme dedication, hard work, and a young mind flexible enough to figure it out. Criminalizing the art of defeating copy protection is nothing more then criminalizing our next generation of computer scientists. We can do it, but wow, what a stupid thing to do.
In other words, you can't regulate 16 year olds. You can't even get them to clean their rooms.
Unfortunately, we have a Congress that was elected on the issues of gun control, the death sentence, and partial birth abortion, so it's not surprising that they understand so little about the Constitution that they would tamper with Copyright the way they have -- by banning reverse engineering, in the apparent hopes that this will "dumb down" the population, at the "small" cost of criminalizing our brightest young people for satisfying their curiosity about their most valued possessions -- their music and video collections.
The real "solution" to copyright infringement is to remove the incentives to infringe. Pay close attention to your pricing, make sure that you are offering a total package that contains more value then just a copy on recordable media. If you're a music publisher, that means including nice artwork, with printed lyrics and liner notes. If you're selling a computer program, that means including good printed documentation. If you're selling a DVD, that means having interesting "extras" on the DVD that people will want to buy, as opposed to just selling the movie itself, which can be decrypted with DeCSS and copied as an MPEG stream.
In short, provide value for your customers money. The same thing that producers have had to do since the beginning of time -- or until our Congress created special laws to relieve the entertainment industry of this "burden".
Copy protection is an illusion. Every copy protection for every interesting product will be broken, given time. If you've based your business model on the illusion that copy protection will allow you to control your customers, then your business will fail. The entertainment industry does not need to base their business model on copy protection, but if they continue to do so, then they will fail as a business.
They will not win. The 16 year olds will win.
Mark my words.
Re:filter needed (Score:4)
matress tag police (Score:2)
I just bought a new chair, and the tags were on the cushion. It stated that the label is not to be removed under penalty of law by anyone OTHER THAN the consumer. In other words, if the tag is in place, it is guaranteed brand new.
That's what you get when you let stand up comedians raise your kids
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Fair Use Explained. (Score:2)
"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research."
Fair use is not a right, but a defense to someone claiming infringed copyright. Fair use is decided by the judge by considering:
"1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commer-cial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."
Basically, the copyright holder retains certian exclusive rights through the copyright's duration; that of public performance, distribution, blah, blah. If the judge feels you've infringed on those rights, you're guilty. However, if your work does not infringe on those rights, your fair use defense may succeed.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fls/fl102.pdf
Re:Haven't any of you people ever been ill? (Score:2)
That said, though, take a good look at his record. For years he has consistently spoken against copying of any sort so stridently as to come across like a militant psychopath. The guy is pretty damned hardcore. THAT behaviour has (justly) earned him some serious disgust. Attacking him for that behaviour is quite justified.
Re:Comments (Score:4)
Most people could care less, because they only see the DVD in terms of a glorified "digital" videocassette, with a few cute add-ons.
We have no idea what people might want to do with the contents of a DVD, because people don't have access to the raw contents of a DVD. There is the potential for entire new art forms -- just like sampling technology ushered in an entire new form of music -- one that was unimagined before digital technology -- or only practiced by a few individuals with extraordinary resources, such as the Beatles with Revolution 9.
Hypothetically, given complete access to the raw digital data on her DVD collection, and video editing software, a person could sample bits and pieces of different movies, combine them with a soundtrack made by sampling different movies and songs, and create expressive new works of art. Even if those works could not be commercially exploited due to copyright restrictions, that wouldn't matter. A person who developed a talent that way could then go on to create similar works using their own sources, or licensed sources as raw material, thus creating works that could be commercially exploited, and at the same time creating an entire new market for stock footage.
Until it is established that one has a fair use right to get at the raw contents of copyrighted works that you have purchased, most people will not even consider the potential possibilities of such access.
In short, there is an entire world of possibilities for new forms of artistic expression that are sitting dormant, because the MPAA is struggling to ensure, through technological and legal means, that the only experience people can bring to their products are to sit on the couch, eat popcorn, and turn off their brain for two hours.
Back to the sampling analogy, sampling doesn't affect most people only in the sense that most people aren't DJs. However, given the popularity of house, hiphop, and other forms consisting largely of samples, a large percentage of the population are affected by and benefit from the talents of the small percentage of the population who exploit sampling technology to create new works, and a similar potential exists for audiovisual works as well. The technology is just emerging that will make this possible, DeCSS is a big part of it, and the MPAA is determined to stop it.
So I would agree that most people aren't affected by this
That's the real stakes behind DeCSS.
Re:hmmm im not sure... (Score:2)
Mr. Cooper: Ambiguous. Please reread the question
This is a perfect example of why most sane people have such a low opinion of lawyers. The number of times that Mr. Cooper spouted the word "ambiguous" is quite unbelievable, particularly when there was no ambiguity. Questions like "do you recall such and such" are not ambiguous. Either he does, or he doesn't. It's quite simple, really.
Re:Fair use definitions (Score:2)
That's his view of fair use. And also the view of the laws he has helped craft. Maybe it's just me, but this willful disregard for our court system gives me absolutely no reason to respect this guys laws. He is lying in court. Is it even possible for very powerful people to be honest in court? (Clinton, Gates, Valenti, etc..) I guess if they were, they wouldn't end up quite so powerful, so there ya go.
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Yummmm, I want his net connection... (Score:2)
Re:Where do I send my money? (Score:2)
They're providing the defense.
Re:You know... (Score:2)
How does CSS prevent copying? Bit-for-bit copies have *always* been possible, CSS does absolutely nothing to prevent it. Therefore, CSS is *not* an "effective copy-control mechanism". QED.
CSS is an Access Control system, it prevents access to content by unauthorized parties (supposedly - hah!). But apparently the MPAA is too embarassed to admit that copying DVD's is easy, if expensive. The Studios that pay the MPAA's bills might be quite upset by that little gem...
Re:SAME SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN -- SHUT UP IDIOT (Score:2)
The obvious response to this is, that if it wasn't for the "fascist" existing copyright laws, we wouldn't need copyleft.
Re:Comments (Score:2)
If they were to use DeCSS, they would lose the alternate soundtracks, the menu features, the hidden features -- all of the features that differentiate a DVD from a videocassette.
In short, it would be much more work to use DeCSS to decode the disc, and would lead to an inferior product. Why would media bootleggers be interested in something like that when they can much more easily produce perfectly working counterfeits with a bit-for-bit copy, which they are doing in enormous numbers right now.
VCDs aren't an issue either, because VCDs are generally produced from analog sources -- a camcorder in a theatre, or a screener cassette.
Implying that DeCSS facilitates commercial bootlegging operations is a complete red herring.
Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:2)
They might have to make money based on service & physical products?
Haven't any of you people ever been ill? (Score:2)
I'm not here to defend the MPAA or the DMCA, and certainly not the creator of the MPAA ratings -- I hate them all as much as the next slashdotter -- but I am highly disappointed with the way most of the posters to this thread have been treating Mr. Valenti.
At the time of this deposition he was 79 years old and claimed to have a 102 degree fever. I've been that sick before and I don't think I would have stood up to a full deposition. If you think being grilled by a hostile lawyer when you're that sick, you've never been that sick. Give it a rest -- he's an old man, he's sick, he may even be dying -- if you can't give him any respect for living that long and still being active and productive, then I can't give your views any respect, and no one else will either.
On the other hand, I have to admit that it was an excellent tactic by Mr. Valenti's lawyers. I think Mr. Garbus got sucker-punched; he got a mostly worthless deposition, and whenever he goes to use it to try and discredit Mr. Valenti he's going to get laughed at in court. <sigh>
Are you moderating this down because you disagree with it, or because it doesn't add any value to the discussion?Are you moderating this down because you disagree with it,
Re:The media industry is dying (Score:2)
--locust
Analog vs. Digital (Score:2)
What is wrong with lossless transmission? How is that a danger to the public and to the MPAA? This is a changing world Jack and just because you used loss of quality as an excuse to allow VCR's to take off, doesn't mean it holds any relevance today.
What was, no longer is. Deal with it.
Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:2)
...that inadvertently saved the net's collective ass when Internet Worm II was launched? As somebody (I want to say Steve Bellovin but I'm not sure) pointed out in the aftermath, the reason that damage was as easily contained as it was was mostly due to the "biodiversity" of hosts running different OSes. More kernels are not necessarily worse.
Re:Arrest that Valenti (Score:2)
Isn't evidence that is illegally obtained, not valid for use in a court of law?
-Tommy
Re:Whine whine whine.. (Score:2)
Curiously he was considerably more informed about what Linux is than either of the other people present. He actually knew what it was. I wonder if the lawyers thought they understood the question about using DeCSS to produce an Operating System for Linux toi play DVD's (slightly garbled question page 21, line 9)
Why are they worried about DVD piracy? (Score:5)
It seems that people breaking DVD encryption is the least of their worries.
Re:hmmmm interesting.... (Score:2)
Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:2)
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Hoo boy... (Score:4)
Um, guys, if I filed a lawsuit, I would expect to need to take part in depositions. Course, I'm just one of them evil reverse-engineering-supporting hackers...
Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:2)
Umm, you are aware of the general feeling for how to make money on GPLed software right? As a service. You pay for support, not the right to use the bits. And what is this warez you are talking about? In the absence of copyright there would be no such thing. You would be calling them "programs" or some such.
The corps (like they do now) would pay for the service contracts. They could hire teeny warez punks to do it, but they would probably see a nice shiny businessman when they signed on the dotted line.
This sub-thread is about the GPL relyin' on copyright to be effective. The GPL only exists because of copyright, without the stimulus there would be no response.
Note: I'm just explaining what I see. Personally I think copyright has a place*. Stallman didn't think so, so he made a copyleft which uses the rules of copyright to cancel itself out.
*a whole 'nother discussion.
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Re:Is this really about region encoding? (Score:2)
And of course those other versions cost more because they have to be made special for whatever region/language in the area (which probably is all of about one or two bytes of code somewhere preventing viewing these region encoded disks.
I can see where this is an issue of not wanting to put 100 different languages/translations on one disk, which wouldn't be realistic (unless you want 3 or 4 DVD with only 1 DVD having the language/translation you want).
Courtney Love and stupid artists (and programmers) (Score:2)
True, many musicians are in a lousy bargaining position. This is because they are lousy musicians, and they only become commercially valuable because of expensive marketing. They can sign up and "get screwed" while becoming famous making crappy music, or they can not sign up and go get real jobs.
Even then, if they have any mercenary instincts at all, there are ways to cash in on fame.
If you don't care enough to watch out for your own bottom line, there's sure as hell not going to be anyone else to do it.
Yeah, the current system sucks, but I'm not shedding any tears for the poor starving famous people.
Impossibility of DVD copy protection (Score:2)
Re:Two types of idiots (Score:2)
Q: Mr. Valenti, what do you think about someone who wants to watch a movie out of the region it's designed for?
A: The DMCA is clear. That's just plain illegal.
Q: Mr. Valenti, what do you think about someone who wanted to watch a DVD on their Linux box?
A: The DMCA is clear. That's just plain illegal.
Q: What about if it's a school or a library?
A: That's OK then.
Q: What about if the school or library used a Linux box?
A: The DMCA is clear. That's just plain illegal.
Q: Mr. Valenti? What do you think about fair use?
A: The DMCA is clear. That's just plain illegal.
This guy is pretty transparent, IMO. Anyone who prevents me from making $$$=illegal.
If he were to "have some sort of grasp on the issues here," he would know a lot about his defendants, he would understand the distinction between encryption and copy control and would have a *much* better memory. He keeps telling us it's "simple." If it were simple, this case would have been over and done with a long time ago or would never have come up. Of all the things this case is {'harassment', 'corporocratic bullying', 'greedy', 'shortsighted'}, none include {'simple'}
Re:Arrest that Valenti (Score:2)
Re:It's worse than I thought at first... (Score:3)
I would guess that mothers of large families would be especially good at this, having lots of experience at monitoring conversations (and other incidental noises) without continually parsing them. Meanwhile, the rest of their mind is thinking about what to have for dinner that evening, or off in Fiji somewhere with a Fabio clone and a ripped bodice. They probably remember the entire conversation as something like this:
Q: Arf arf, arfarfarf, woof?
A: Meow?
Counsel: Grrrrrrrrr!
Q: Woof WOOF!
A: Meowrrreow.
Q: Oink Oink Oink?
Counsel: Heeeee-awww! Heee-awwwwww!
A: Could you read back the question please?
Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:2)
All the questions that where asked "could a librarian use a few minutes of a DVD" and stuff like that seem quite easy to answer to me. No she cannot. Now in reality, she would, and no one would throw her in jail for it, but its not legal.
Now what it SHOULD be is that once purchased, a piece of software or hardware and whatever technology inside and on it, is owned by the person who bought it. This is the dream of the free software foundation (free not meaning free of charge but as in "information wants to be free"). So whatever I decide to do with my movie, I should be allowed to do. I bought the rights to do that.
This is of course a utopia and not realisable in reality, but we can dream can we not? I feel that the DeCSS movement (which it could almost be described to be these days) is a form of protest us Swedish call "Civil Olydnad", civil disobedience. Meaning to protest against stupid laws by doing what is right even though it is illegal. Lets hope they can afford the consequences.
Unlicenced decryption is illegal (Score:2)
Reading the DMCA, this is a perfectly reasonable conclusion. Whether it is fair is irrelevent here.
Personally I think that he genuinely believes that the motion picture industry is purely interested in preventing piracy, and wouldn't stoop to underhand methods to prevent people from doing anything legal.
The media industry is dying (Score:5)
You can see it when these people go infront of the worlds press and are able to make all sorts of statements full of facts and figures off thier head and have an answer to any and all questions.
Put them on the stand where people have a chance to ask questions and delve for the truth behind the facts and figures, and they suddenly develop a bad memory and can't quite figure out where they heard some facts and figures.
Courtney Love's rant in salon.com shows what the artists at the recieving end are really getting from all the protection: next to nothing.
The sooner that things like the RIAA die off the sooner you will find local bands getting success because they are actually good musicians, and not getting success because they have a manager that knows someone.
The same goes for DVD technology. Robert Rodrigeuz was the exception to the rule when a small filmmaker could actually make a film for nothing and get it taken by a studio. Locking up the DVD distribution and technology will allow executives to have control over who gets to pay them money to buy films.
Re:Is this really about region encoding? (Score:5)
Their "party line", after all, is that the only use of DeCSS is to facilitate illegal copying, and that DeCSS has no non-infringing uses. That's what the entire lawsuit is riding on.
Schumann glossed over the exact same point by claiming that DeCSS had nothing to do with region coding, which was disingenuous to say the least.
I don't understand why Garbus didn't push him on the point. It's a very important point.
My big rebuttal (Score:2)
Original text in italics, my comments in normal text.
October 28, 1999
(right before halloween)
VALENTI WARNS THE DANGERS OF INTERNET PIRACY BEFORE CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEE
All internet piracy must be reviewed by congress before it will be allowed to continue.
Washington, D.C., Thursday, October 28, 1999...On the first anniversary of the enactment of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), Jack Valenti, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), warned about the dangers of Internet piracy that threatens to devastate the future of American movies, the nation's most prized trade asset. "While the Internet has great potential, it can also cause enormous losses and damage to consumers and to intellectual property industries," said Valenti. Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommun-ications, Trade and Consumer Protection of the Commerce Committee, Valenti offered a demonstration of the very real threat of Internet piracy.
"While the internet has great potential, we're going to do our best to stamp it out," said Valenti.
Valenti told the Committee that the digital world is far more dangerous that the analog world. "The 1000th copy of a digitized movie is as pure as the original, whereas in analog each copy is degraded in quality."
What I don't get is why this is perceived to be so much more dangerous. First of all, very few people are actually DeCSSing and storing movies on disk (as opposed to disc.) Those that are are generally paying for the movies in their collection. Disk space is cheap, but it's not that cheap. Second of all, a DVD Burner costs about US$3,000 to US$5,000, and media runs about $40 a PIECE. It's actually CHEAPER to buy the DVD in the store, unless it's part of the Criterion Collection... But I digress.
You can make a VCD copy of a DVD with, I'm willing to bet, relatively little trouble, as long as you're willing to be a film editor and figure out which vob files belong in which order and so on, but that degrades the quality from DVD, so Valenti's statement, while true, is completely irrelevant, besides which, since DVDs have no copy protection, when/if DVD burners and media come down dramatically in price, you'll just be able to copy all the files to the new disc and give it the same volume name, and BAM, you've got a copy of the movie. CSS doesn't prevent that.
Valenti provided the examples of a site advertising VCDs of films such as "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Mickey Blue Eyes" both of which are not yet available in video form. "What is even more remarkable," said Valenti, "is that you can also purchase films that have just begun their theatrical run." He offered the film "Random Hearts," released just three weeks ago, as a prime example of this. "Toy Story II" which has not even been released in theaters is on the Internet.
As I mentioned in a previous comment [slashdot.org], this is because people are digitizing screeners. This digital media comes from an analog source. This, obviously, is not even an issue in the current topic of conversation.
During his testimony Valenti played a brief clip from the MGM film "Stigmata." "This film was illegally downloaded this week and the film is still in many theaters in the U.S. and has not yet opened anywhere else in the world. But it is available on the Internet for free."
It would be instructive to know if this was a telesync or a screener. Telesyncs are movies recorded with a videocamera inside a movie theater, usually with some fairly high quality equipment. If there is an inside man, audio may be directly from the board, or it may be from one or two microphones.
Telesyncs are not a danger to the sales of any form of media, as a "VCD" Telesync is dramatically lower quality than a VCD made from a purchased VHS tape.
Valenti also took the Subcommittee to the popular Ebay auction site where just yesterday one could bid on a VCD copy of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." "This is not available in any format anywhere in the world legally," observed Valenti. "MPAA works with Ebay and other auction sites to reduce this type of piracy," he added.
This was DEFINITELY a Telesync. In fact, at one time I had downloaded PART of it and watched the pod race scene. I then expressed my opinion of it and deleted it; Obviously, I was only using the clip for review, and therefore my use falls under Fair Use :)
Valenti next addressed downloadable media, which he said, "poses a much greater threat to the creative community." He noted that this is the same type of piracy as the downloading of illegal software or illegal MP3 files, which has pillaged the music industry.
What do you mean, "downloadable media"? A wav file recorded with a sound blaster 16 from a VHS copy of Tombstone is "downloadable media"; So is the image of the tee shirt from 2600 with the caricature of Valenti on it -- A brilliant piece of work, by the way.
Valenti noted that "currently our films are protected by two factors - the amount of time needed to download a full-length motion picture and the lack of unprotected digital copies of our works. But, with the increased availability of broadband Internet access you can bring down a full-length motion picture in less than 15 minutes versus the four to five hours for non-broadband."
Let's take a critical look at this for just a second. If you have basic ADSL, you get 1.544mbits/second, or about 160kbytes/second best case. A full movie is about two VCDs long, or approximately 1.2gigabytes. Converted to kbytes, this is 1258291.2 kbytes in size. That means that with the most commonly available DSL around, you're going to take more than two hours to download a full movie at any reasonable quality.
A DVD movie should be around 4gb. On a basic ADSL connection, this is going to take you 7.2 hours to download, best case. However, sites rarely if ever give you those kind of speeds; You're usually looking at something more like 30kbytes/second, if that. Clearly, saying that you can download a movie in fifteen minutes does not apply to the general public, even those with DSL connections.
Just to continue to rub this in their face, the fastest available ADSL of which I am aware gives you 6mbits/sec download, peak. This should give you approximately 600kbytes/sec download speeds. At that speed, it takes an hour to download 1.2 gigabytes. Even if you have an extremely high speed DSL connection, it takes (in the best case) four times as long as valenti claims to download a feature-length movie.
He also observed that the advent of digital recording devices and high-definition television poses the risk of works "being digitally reproduced without permission in commercially viable forms. Our ramparts are being breached on all sides."
Being digitally reproduced doesn't mean anything. In addition, who decides what's "commercially viable"? People have gotten rich selling things like "elvis sweat", bad cologne in small glass sample vials. Doesn't that mean that anything is commercially viable?
Downloadable media piracy can threaten the foundation of the motion picture industry by allowing a single pirate with a single copy of film to produce thousands of copies in a few hours, which are then distributed to sites all over the world. "Thus with a single keystroke, a pirate can do millions of dollars worth of damage to the potential market for a motion picture, whether or not the pirate makes a nickel from this effort," said Valenti.
This is totally inaccurate. First of all, just because people download a movie doesn't mean they won't buy it. It's one thing to be able to watch The Matrix and follow the story; It's entirely another to see it on DVD in all its high-resolution and AC 5.1 Audio glory. I wouldn't even watch that movie on VHS, let alone on VCD. There's just no bloody point to it.
Now that I've covered the financial side, let's address the technical side - The person who's uploading this data is not making thousands of copies; They're making one copy. That one copy is then copied once again, to a site; People then download it, making further copies. The person who uploaded it has only made two copies, one of which is ostensibly a legal copy, the one for his personal use.
In addition to how quickly Internet piracy can spread, Valenti said equipment for piracy is inexpensive and highly portable. "Pirates do not need to remain in a fixed location but can upload illegal materials anywhere in the world on any computer that is linked to a network," said Valenti.
Actually, I can pirate materials on a computer that isn't linked to any network, if I can get my hands on the media. What I think he's talking about here (It's hard to be sure because he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about) is that you can upload or download any time you're connected to the internet. However, that doesn't really make any difference at all; First of all, I'm not going to download a VCD over an acoustically coupled modem in a phone booth. You'd need an endless supply of quarters (or a fat calling card) and a generator to keep your connection and computer alive long enough to finish the transfer, and you'd get arrested for loitering before you completed.
"Today, piracy of audiovisual products costs us more than $2 billion a year," stated Valenti. Technological measures are essential, but not enough. Education is required, as are strong legal protections. Last year Congress took a major step in protecting intellectual property on the Internet with the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)."
Piracy of audiovisual products? Someone's been making illegal copies of slide projectors and reel-to-reel decks?
This has long been a point of contention between pirates (and those who are stamped as pirates when in fact they are not) and those who own IP that gets copied.
If you can't afford a software package, for example, you would never purchase it. However, if you can get a copy of it, you will still see it. That doesn't mean that they're losing revenue; They're just continuing to not see revenue. It's not a loss, even if it might be considered theft; It's just a lack of a gain that they would never have experienced in any case.
On the other hand, if you copy a movie instead of buying it when you COULD afford it, then you ARE hurting their revenue stream, which is bad for everyone. People are compelled to make the kinds of movies people pay for. If you don't pay for it, you're not voting, which in a capitalist system can only be done with the dollar (As evidence, examine our government and legal system in general.) You're hurting yourself in the long run.
Valenti also emphasized that the DMCA will not work as Congress intended unless access to the WHOIS domain name database is maintained. "MPAA's piracy investigators must determine which website is responsible for the illegal material. The WHOIS database is the first step in determining the ultimate Internet piracy."
I do whois lookups all the time. What's his problem? Can't find the flag that lets you specify a different server? Personally, I wish someone would have maintained the gopher service.
Valenti pledged to continue working with the consumer electronic and high-tech industries to develop effective technological protections to prevent illegal copying of digitized films.
"Valenti pledged to continue paying consumer electronic and high-tech companies to continue finding ways to f**k consumers out of their rights as purchasers (NOT licensees) of copyrighted material."
Concluding, Valenti offered a final thought, "One of the nation's greatest trade assets is at risk. If you cannot protect what you own, then you own nothing."
When did this article get to be about the right to keep and bear arms?
This is patently not about being able to protect copyright or IP. This is about, well hell, I'm not really sure what it's about. As far as I can tell, the DMCA (and the whole CSS thing) is about taking away my rights as a consumer and customer. It's also a whole passle of lies. If I were a judge and someone spewed this nonsense in my court, I'd hold them in contempt and charge them with perjury, since it's full of nonsense.
I am not for one second arguing that studios do not have the right to protect their intellectual property, but I don't think they have the right to step on my rights in the process. I think we can find some sort of common ground provided that the courts and associated people-of-power don't listen to hand puppets like Jack Valenti.
Re:STREAM BOX RIPPER (Score:2)
Re:"Some kind of bug" (Score:2)
A memory leak, judging by the number of "I don't recalls" etc.
Hmm.. (Score:2)
Looks like about a fourth to a third of the document is marked that way..
2600's take... (Score:2)
(Probably redundant at this point, given the speed of posting. Oh well:)
Re:Haven't any of you people ever been ill? (Score:2)
Unless and until he files such a request, that deposition is Valenti's legal position behind which he stands.
/.
not guaranteed brand new (Score:2)
Re:Valenti seems to think DMCA trumps fair use (Score:2)
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.
Sounds bad eh, read the rest of it. Here are the exemptions that are relevant to this story...
`(d) EXEMPTION FOR NONPROFIT LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES, AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS- [...]
`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) [...]
`(g) ENCRYPTION RESEARCH- [...]
It even says right in there that you can distribute your findings. I mean really, it's just a draft of copyright law specific to advanced technology. If someone can find me a specific line in there that states why it's a bad thing, I'll be happy to concede.
What's bad is that once it's been proven that you have circumvented a technological measure you have to prove in court that you were exempt. If the DeCSS author had kept detailed records of his intent and methods and archived them he could have avoided this whole mess.
Here is Sec. 1201 of the DMCA [loc.gov] tell me where it doesn't allow for fair use. I really want to know.
Not Dumb -- Weaseling (Score:2)
1) He claimed to have a 102 degree fever (which meant he should have been in bed, & they should have resceduled the deposition for another day), &
2) His lawyer early on scored the point that everything he knows about this case is protected by lawyer-client confidentiality. (Sorta like a Mafia hitman getting his orders from the local priest in the confessional. Only the Mafia never thought of that trick.) As a result, he could only report on discussions & information that did NOT come from his lawyer. And, amazing to relate, the man could not recall exactly what he hadn't heard from his laywer, & thus got away with playing dumb.
Geoff
Hehe.. Wasn't the VCR supposed to kill film? (Score:2)
Wow, I am *SO SUPRISED* that they've managed to make an insane bundle of money off of the rental industry. A rental industry that where they make how much profit, and one that they hadn't even imagined back then.
I wouldn't be surprised if a few lost out, but overall, the VCR was an incredible boom to the rental and videotape industry. Something that the extra freedom of the VCR was never expected to supply, but it did.
If you want the truth, I suspect that if they were to lose this case, and DMCA, and maybe even copyright. (as it's currently enforced), that they would be creative once again and figure out how to make even more insane bundles of money. And we'd get some more new art forms.
Of course, they see this as risk. And they're scared of being among the minority that can't adapt.
Re:Is this really any suprise? (Score:2)
Yeah, but who can we vote for that would actually make a difference?
Re:The media industry is dying (Score:2)
somebody moderate this up....
hmmmm interesting.... (Score:2)
When asked about librarians using 2 or 3 mins of a film as part of a lecture....he answers...
"The answer is, if there's a legal conclusion to be drawn, I don't know" so....he is perfectly ok drawing his own legal conclusions about unlicenced DVD players, but not about that....interesting.
This seems to me to sound like the argument over Cable content scrambling. I have always been of the opinion that I can do whatever I want with data, once its in my posession. So if they don't want me to descramble, decrypt or whatever, then they shouldn't send me the signal in the first place, should block it outside the home.
Course, thats not convinent. The rule that life isn't always convinent isn't suposed to apply to corperations I guess.
Re:Why are they worried about DVD piracy? (Score:3)
I don't see pirated DVD's as such a big threat in any light. Unlike CDs and MP3s, there is a great system in place where I can rent a movie for a very reasonable price. I don't want to waste my bandwidth downloading a movie (even when I get a high speed connection) when I can go down to the local video store, say hi to some people, pay my two dollars and enjoy!
Re:Fair use definitions (Score:2)
I run a small website. Occasionally I review movies. Would it be fair under the "Fair Use Guidelines" for me to include small film clips for purposes for review? And if not, why? And if I can include them, shouldn't I have the right to make them? From a digital source? That I have already bought?
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Re:Confusion about fast forward on DVD's.... (Score:2)
Phrase counts... (Score:3)
First of all, I believe the phrase counts in that Wired came up with to be wildy inaccurate. At least it sure felt like these phrases were uttered more often than that.
Plus, I had this image of the plaintiff lawyer sitting at the table using a series of recorded objections (sort like Brian Wilson playing back comments on his tape recorders). Jeez! Every single question was objected to with something inane like: ``Ambiguous'', ``Lacks foundation'', ``Assumes facts not in evidence'', or, when in doubt, combine them altogether to say ``It's ambiguous. It's an incomplete hypothetical. Assumes facts not in evidence, and it calls for a legal conclusion''. It's truly sad that this is what passes as the quest for the truth in the American legal system nowadays.
From reading the deposition, it seems (unbelievably) that Jack Valenti had absolutely no idea that there's a legal proceeding underway until he was told so by his laywer. Therefore, he couldn't answer any questions since that would have violated client-lawyer confidentiality. How convenient!
Let's hope this deposition can be used to blow Mr. Valenti's credibility on this subject right out of the water because it sure seemed that he didn't know anything about the subject (even though he testifies as though he's up to speed on this stuff).
--
Or held it for trial... (Score:2)
You don't want to blow your whole wad in the depositions.
Who was he in a former life? (Score:3)
A Yes.
Q Can you just tell us for a moment whatyour previous life consisted of?
LOL So, reincarnation is is being offered into evidence... Any guesses as to who he was in a former life - remember he was on TV during it =)
Re:[OT/SP] "Ban Rocks" or "Hang'm High" (Score:2)
Re:SAME SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN -- SHUT UP IDIOT (Score:2)
Is this really any suprise? (Score:5)
AFAIK, all Jack knows is that DeCSS==decryption==availability==piracy. It is a whole lot harder trying to track down and prosecute pirates, so why not try to illegalize any tools that can be used to commit the crime!? To them this is damage control, to us it is an invasion on our rights to make decisions. If I can decrypt a DVD to watch it on my Linux box then fine, but I can also chose to convert the unencrypted data to VCD format and upload it onto an FTP server. That is like using a hangar to open the door on my car when I lock the keys in it as opposed to using a hangar to open the door on someone else's car to steal it. I am suprised that automotive insurance companys do not lobby to make hangars illegal all together!
I just pray that the defense proves to the judge that there are legit purposes to DeCSS and that it is not practicle to use it for illegal purposes. The DMCA needs to be re-evaluated!
Re:Haven't any of you people ever been ill? (Score:2)
//rdj
Fair use definitions (Score:5)
It's instructive to see precisely how Mr Valenti views the whole DVD-on-linux situation. For example:
BY MR. GARBUS: Q I'm not taking now about reverse -- Mr. Valenti. I'm not now talking about the actual reverse engineering. Let's assume man A does the reverse engineering. Man B posts it on the internet. Man C then takes that information, and he's a Linux, user, and he uses that information to play a DVD on a Linux operating system and the Linux operating system has no license from the DVD CCA. Is it your view that that's against the law?
A[Mr Valenti] Yes.
His views on fair use are also interesting and far more restrictive than I believe the law to be. Another excerpt:
Q Did you also testify before congress that the Fair Use Exception was not cut out by the DMCA?
A Yes. The concept of Fair Use is intact in the DMCA.
and a little later ...
BY MR. GARBUS: Q What is the concept of Fair Use, as you understand it?
A It means that libraries or schoolteachers can play movies in their classrooms for educational purposes.
I also threw my coffee over the keyboard at this one. Just for educational institutions?
Draw your own conclusions.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
It's worse than I thought at first... (Score:5)
Whine, whine... I have to wonder what the stenographers think about this. They have to put up with it every single day.
Of course, it's fairly obvious that this is an issue he's "here to answer on". His competence in addressing the DMCA is directly relevant to this case, and I find it a little surprising that his lawyers are trying to stop it so blatantly. Myself, I would have just tried to dodge the question with a Clinton-like many-words-but-no-content answer.
We all know, that the reason they're so worried is that if he screws up even the tiniest aspect of the DMCA, Garbus will be all over him for it. As well he should.
This reminds me of those Grisham novels where the lawyer takes on a corporation, finds out they are in way over their head, and just rips them to shreds within minutes. Quite enjoyable to watch... =)
Court reporters (offtopic but funny) (Score:2)
One reporter on his first job was so caught up in the proceedings that he forgot to take notes, and didn't realize it until he was asked to read back his notes.
Another was just the opposite. He was so focused on taking notes that when he was asked to read back, he simply wrote down the request and waited for things to continue.
Most of the good ones I talked with said they were very detached from everything. Simply took the notes and didn't think about much at all other than the process of taking the notes. Relax and transcribe, that's the trick.
--
Re:Is this really about region encoding? (Score:2)
Bandwidth (Score:2)
I'd like to see Mr. Valenti try to download a feature-length movie of reasonable quality (usually around 800MB from what I've seen) on a 56k modem in less than 48 hours. Where is he coming up with these figures?
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MPAA's Lawyer Says Valenti Can't Explain the DMCA! (Score:4)
Good point there - he's lobbied for these laws, yet accoring to his lawyer, Valenti isn't even competent enough to answer questions about the DMCA!
I FIGURED IT OUT! (Score:2)
Since this was planned beforehand, that "bug" he's got? Remember all the worms and trojans that you've been hearing entirely too much about recently?
Jack Valenti's brain was under a DoS attack at the time of his deposition, limiting his resources and rendering him unable to answer the questions!
Typical, (Score:3)
The logic is brilliant: "I'm smart and compatent, I don't have problem X, therefore if you have problem X you must be stupid and incompatent, and we all know that the stupid and incompatent deserve whatever they get - QED"
The fact of the matter is: Regardless of buisiness accumen, you are far more likely to make a decent living as an average programmer than you are as an average musician
Large companies take in on the order of 1-2 hundred thousand per person. And the average starting salary for a programmer is around 40-50 grand a year. So even if you don't negotiate a great deal or even if you aren't a kung foo master, you can still afford to live (well the valley is a mess but that's a different rant).
If a band only takes in a few hundred grand in record sales, they are fucked. They are in serious debt and with a typical contract, their career as a band is over - unless the record company has pity on them.
I would bet that there are fewer major label artists who are independently wealthy than there are programmers doing 80 hour weeks for 20K.
As far as major labels go, almost every mucisian is in a lousy barganing position, even if they are brilliant, even if they have a proven track record, even if they sell millions. So maybe Madonna is happy with her label, since she is a great buisiness woman and has made her label a fortune, they probably don't fuck with her. But there are literally a handful of people in that position. It is not uncommon for multi-plaitmun artists to be totally screwed and unable to do anything about it, even with really good lawers.
You really ought to read the steve albini rants, he gets into much more detail:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.indiem
Of course, musicians still have choices. Everyone should do thier reseach before entering into a contract. And any good reserch of major labels would reveal that they are pure evil. And if you are good, you can make a decent middle class living playing gigs and releasing on a fair indie label. Unless you would have 3+ multi-platnum albums w/ a major, indies are your best choice. (although i don't know of many programmers who wind up hundreds of thoudands in debt, just cuz they didn't do thier reseach before getting thier first job)
One more thing, it probably sucks to be super famous without being rich. If you are super famous, it's hard to lead a normal life, people harrass you, people want to touch you, pick a fight with you, block your way to talk with you. You need to spend money on security, you can't just go out and run errands without major hassles. People start expecting stuff from you, assuming that you're rich. If you go outside in cheap clothes or a cheap car or a cheap haircut you get dogged on the cover of the enquierer. Your kids get hassled at public schools. Your privacy is constantly assaulted. You end up spending money just to protect yourself from you fame. It's hard to do that with a middle class income. Granted, you get laied, get gift clothing from designers and don't have to wait for a table in restaraunts, whoo-hoo!
You don't have to shed tears for starving famous people, but realize that they need to go public with their stories so that others can make informed choices about whether to sign on the dotted line.
Re:Arrest that Valenti (Score:3)
Re:Fair use definitions (Score:2)
In the future, patrons will be required to have their memories erased opon leaving the theatre in order to preserve "Intelectual Property Rights".
Re:Arrest that Valenti (Score:2)
So if the film is not yet available on DVD, it probably has never been pressed onto DVD. That means deCSS could NOT possibly be involved in this case of pirating a copyrighted work.
I hope the honorable Mr. Garbus cleverly works this into the trial at some point, to invalidate these statements by the MPAA.
Also, the statement "and has not yet opened anywhere else in the world." seems kind of false. Stigmata has been playing in Europe, but then, we don't count
Given the tone of the deposition, I'll place my money on 2600 et. al.
the AC
AVI / DivX gives good quality at reasonable size (Score:2)
So you can have a good quality movie at a size (600 MB) which people will download. Then again,
Garbus should have pressed this... (Score:2)
Velenti said he didn't know what the DVD-CCA was, who it was, or what it does. Later, Garbus went into asking if Valenti believed that unlicensed DVD players were against the law. I wonder why Garbus didn't just generalize it to "Do you believe that DVD players are against the law?" (leaving the issue of whether it is licensed or not, out). If Valenti pretends to not know what DVD-CCA is, then that question would have been a pretty sticky one to answer.
I would like to ask Valenti this: "Is a Sony DVD player, for sale as Best Buy, against the law?" Either Valenti would have to say he doesn't know, or he would suddenly have to "remember" what DVD-CCA is.
How convenient that Valenti was sick and had a 102 fever. That will come in handy later, when it is discovered that some of his "I don't know"s are lies.
---
Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:3)
It's only illegal due to the DMCA; under general copyright law and the precedents of past court cases, citing part of a copyrighted work falls under the protection of fair use. Perhaps Mr. Garbus is bringing this up to set up a later appeal and constitutional challenge to the DMCA.
In response to some previous comments in another article about Mr. Garbus: perhaps he isn't the most technologically savvy lawyer in the world, but he seems to be a deep thinker and I'm sure he knows his way around the courtroom very well. The 2600 defendants and the technical community at large are very lucky to have his help in this case. And when you think about it, this isn't really a technical issue. The boundaries of copyright and intellectual property have been in the courts for hundreds of years; this is just the latest instalment of those court battles. If I were Mr. Goldstein, I would be much happier to have a lawyer well-versed in IP law and first amendment issues, than a lawyer who is intimately familiar with all of the technical details. After all, you can probably pick up the technical details faster than you can learn hundreds of years of legal precedents.
Re:The media industry is dying (Score:3)
Q: Mr Valenti, do you know whether one plus one is equal to two?
Mr Cooper: Ambiguous. Incomplete hypothetical. Lacks foundation and assumes facts not in evidence. Answer yes or no.
Mr Garbus: Go ahead. Please.
The Witness: I don't know.
Q: Do you have any recollections of the past 35 years, at all?
Confidential
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Mr Garbus: So then what did you do with the chicken?
Mr Cooper: Client-Attorney confidentiality.
"Some kind of bug" (Score:5)
Ah! is this a beta version of Mr. Valenti? Bring on Valenti 2.0! Less crashes! More Lawsuits! Improved Grandstanding!
Confusion about fast forward on DVD's.... (Score:4)
-----------
Q If you have, let's say, advertisements in the beginning, can you fast forward past those advertisements so that you can go straight to the movie?
A I'm not aware of DVDs that have advertisements. What do was mean advertisement?
Q Advertisements for other movies.
A Yeah, you can fast forward through that.
------------
It's one of the "features" of DVD players that makes me the most angry, and really makes me consider building a DVD player box based on something like DeCSS to be able to have full control over navigation.
Uninformed or disingenuous? (Score:3)
Or, as most of us would put it, clueless or a liar?
In Mr. Valenti's L.A. Times opinion piece he quoted some of the web sites offering DeCSS as saying the software would allow piracy. Now, most of us have been to a few DeCSS sites and we know that most of them were very clear in saying that DeCSS did not offer functionality that would enable piracy.
There are two possible explanations for this: Either Mr. Valenti was deliberately trying to deceive the Times readers or someone deliberately deceived him.
It would be very interesting to hear some questioning of this flack on the subject of what did he know and when did he know it. While a deposition would be a great place for that (perjury and oaths and all of that), any reporter or call-in show which allows open questioning of the guy should be just as useful. After all, he is a PR guy who has a message he needs to get out, even if it is a deceptive message.
Somebody had to search through a whole bunch of DeCSS sites to find any that promoted themselves the way Mr. Valenti claimed. I doubt it was Jack himself. What if a reporter interviewing him presented him with a computer with an Internet connection and asked him to show the sites?
I doubt he could find one (Can you say, "I don't know," Mr. Valenti?), so the reporter would have to have a backup plan. A simple possibility: Do a search on Google for "DeCSS piracy." I'm betting most of the hits would say, "Here is DeCSS. The MPAA says it can be used for piracy, but it can't. All it's good for is playing DVDs which you legally own and a have a legal right to play."
It would be interesting to see his response. Another "I didn't know" would suggest he has himself been deceived. And the obvious follow-up question would be who told him the information he put in his article.
Another interesting possibility in all this: We all know how easy it is for any of use to put up a DeCSS mirror. Wouldn't it be just as easy for the Motion Picture Association of America to put up one of their own, claiming to be pirates? If we could catch them in a fraud like that, we might be able to really rock their world.
Re:hmmm im not sure... (Score:4)
And what the fuck is with Valenti's attorney? Read the end of the deposition where he states that Valenti should not have been deposed. He's the president of the damned organization that brought the suit! He has the duty to know what his underlings are up to (same as in any company/organization. 'The buck stops here' thing.)
On another front, it appears that 2600's attorney is asking very intelligent to the point questions that show: MPAA has no clue. None whatsoever. Unfortunately, the MPAA's attorney is sticking very much to the legal nitpicking that is part and parcel of a modern court case in America. And THAT is what wins the case. Not facts. Not intelligence. But who is a better nitpicker.
Hopefully this will be different, but let's face it: most judges are much closer to collecting Social Security than I am (and the Supremes have largely been eligible for several years). Not to disparage the elderly, but by and large, those who fought Germans, Japanese, and Italians in the 40's do not grasp computers, DVD's, encryption (barring the occasional Waterhouse;) and basically anything more advanced that a Selectric Typewriter.
I'll point to what my father says about malpractice and 'a jury of his peers': he doesn't mind being tried by a jury of his peers. Unfortunately, his peers are quite capable of getting out of jury duty, leaving the Jerry Springer/Rosie Odonnell fans to decide his fate.
Much the same case as the DeCSS cases. While the judges (are there any jury trials yet?) may not be watching Rosie Odonnell, they sure ain't submitting any kernel patches.
Fuck it. The code is out. It's not going away. This seems more a free speech issue than DMCA anyway. But I guess DMCA is yet another chink in the armor of the first amendment.
Re:It's worse than I thought at first... (Score:4)
Lots of them aren't thinking about it at all, since their minds aren't processing the words flying by any more than is necessary to translate them into shorthand/etc. It's like how it used to be with telegraph operators, especially the ones who were surprised to learn from the papers that Lincoln had been shot when in fact they themselves were the ones who had previously decoded the transmission that reported as much.
Re:Fair use definitions (Score:5)
Basically, yes. The only fair thing to do is respect the corporations' human rights and do the right thing: go out and buy a copy of the film for each individual who will be present in the room while the proprietary content is being viewed on an duly licensed playback device. Anything else is un-American, smacks of Soviet Russia, and will cause Jack Valenti's children to roam the streets begging for scraps of bread.
Please think before you wantonly disregard the rights of Corporate America! Also, be kind, rewind.
Re:Copyright, tricky stuff (Score:4)
If copyright were done away with, I could take the Slackware distribution, make a bunch of source code changes, compile those changes and sell the resulting binaries while refusing to give anyone my source code changes.
Is that what you mean by "Unnecessary"?
I suspect that this "GPL unnecessary with no copyright" meme arose because some people have decided that because some other people misuse copyrights, that all copyrights must therefore be bad. This is black-and-white thinking, and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of both copyright, the GPL and the purpose of the GPL.
If there were no copyright, then all software would be treated pretty much like the BSD license. Anyone could do anything with whatever they could get their mits on. There's a reason that many chose the GPL instead. Because it requires that published changes include source code changes, it encourages people to provide source.
Without copyright law, this falls apart. Rather than being required to publish the source, people are encouraged to keep it secret. Because there is no copyright law to allow the original owner to put requirements on source code use, they cannot prevent people from burying the code changes in a vault to get a leg up on the competition.
Again, if there were no copyright, I could take the Linux kernal, add some stuff like "SuperDuperBus" support, and sell the resulting package without source. I could also bury little changes to make it incompatible with certain other competitor's version, but of course you wouldn't know that, because the source would only reside, in heavily encrypted form, on my hard drive. Soon, since everyone wants "SuperDuperBus" support to use the latest hardware, I've got my sourceless software out everywhere. And with those subtle incompatibilities (unexamined, remember, no one else has that source) I've gained effective control over the OS. And as long as I can keep throwing in useful features, I'll likely retain it.
Sure, I couldn't easily do it, but a big corp. could. Do you think "Corel Linux" would have come with source without being forced to by copyright law? You're niave if you do...
This is what the GPL prevents. If copyright law goes away, the GPL ceases to have meaning, and the problem it was designed to prevent are no longer prevented.
Now please go learn a little about the GPL, it's purpose, and copyright law before continuing to spread what is IMHO an extremely dangerous meme.