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On Wed, 21 Mar 2001 18:12:49 -0000, Brian J. Beesley wrote:
>On 20 Mar 2001, at 18:42, Nathan Russell wrote:
>>
>> Slashdot takes a particular interest in this program because many
>> of their editors and members believe that CSS is an infringment of
>> civil rights - specifically, their right to play DVDs on the
>> operating system of their choice.
>
>And I agree. Totally. I thought there was also a problem that DVD
>movies are offered later and at higher prices in some markets,
>therefore CSS is seen as an infringement of consumer's rights to buy
> a product in the cheapest market.
That's true as well. In particular, some people have had problems
when they moved between regions and their movies could no longer be
played after the old player broke. There was a mildly amusing
article on Slashdot several weeks ago about how, when the
international space station was resupplied, DVD movies were among the
items the astronauts requested as part of their personal weight
allowance.
There was discussion about which region outer space was in, and
whether the astronauts would be breaking a law every several minutes
as they passed between regions :)
(As it happens, there's one region for such 'special international
venues' as cruise ships, and that's how it's dealt with)
>> Of course, (in theory) that could be seen as a disproof of all
>> copyright - there's nothing that does not already exist. Of
>> course, thinking of the number of possible English phrases - never
>> mind books, or images - is a fairly easy way to come up with
>> numbers that dwarf the Mersennes.
>
>Nevertheless I have demonstrated a (for the time being, impractical
>- but roll on quantum computing) _purely mechanical_ way of
>generating all that content; this nullifies the whole idea of
>"intellectual
>property", and the legal concept of copyright that goes with it.
A mixed blessing to be sure - without "intellectual property", the
various free software groups would no longer have assurance that
their programs would be distributed according to the license
requirements.
>> Unfortunately for them, that 40-bit encryption is now hard-coded
>> into every DVD player; they can no more easily change it than they
>> can suddenly start selling videotapes for the Betamax VCR.
>
>Tough. That's _their_ problem, not ours. The fact is that (for
>better or for worse) the DeCSS cat is well and truly out of the
>bag, and I don't see how lawyers are going to be able to persuade
>it to get back in.
My conclusion, to date, is that they've managed to dig themselves in
deeper by encouraging the entire Internet community to go out of
their way to spread copies of DeCSS (and, more importantly, the
included tables, which IIRC are not part of the original 'illegal
prime').
If I have a free week or so this summer, I might start hunting for an
illegal prime corresponding to a patch to add those tables...
>Regards
>Brian Beesley
Nathan
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