Further to this, now for some specific points of legalease ...
Oh and I wonder if this might end up being deemed prohibited content? Nah
- ist' engineering!
>On January 20, 2000, the United States District Court for the Southern
>District of New York granted a Preliminary Injunction prohibiting the
>Internet posting or other provision of DeCSS, having found that DeCSS was
>a prohibited circumvention device within the meaning of 1201(a)(2) and
>that the offering, providing or trafficking of DeCSS on the Internet
>violated 1201(a)(2). That court thus enjoined:
This has NO, NONE, ZIP, ZILCH jurisdiction within Australia. It only
applies to those Hosts within the United States.
>Posting on any Internet web site, or in any other way manufacturing,
>importing or offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking
>in DeCSS, and (b) posting on any Internet web site, or in any other way
Note the term "importing" which means to bring into the United States.
THat means providing you don't live in the USA and transfer the data via
the USA and out again, you are safe (sucked in Satalite ISPs!)
As you are in Australia, you are NOT importing the code inot the United
States, nor publishing or advertising it within the jurisdictional borders.
As you are NOT in the United States you are NOT subject to the "posting to
any internet site" order.
>manufacturing, importing or offering to the public, providing, or
>otherwise trafficking in any technology, product, service, device,
>component, or part thereof, that: (i) is primarily designed or produced
>for the purpose of circumventing, or circumvention the protection afforded
>by, CSS, or any other technological measure that effectively controls
>access to plaintiffs' copyrighted works or effectively protects the
Ok the last few lines in this are interesting. Australian Copyright laws
now allow us to reverse engineer. Thus it's totally irrelvant and only an
Australin Court could change this and set a precendet. That isn't going to
happen. Not with Alston winning the "COntibution to IT" award :)
>plaintiffs' rights to control whether an end user can reproduce,
>manufacture, adapt, publicly perform and/or distribute unauthorized copies
>of their copyrighted works or portions thereof. . .
Just because somsone might use a tool, code, facility etc for illegal
purposes doesn't mean that the tool, facility etc was designed to do so.
One might say that the use of a telephone by a criminal is for illegal
purposes, therefore all telephones should be disconnected.
Bit silly.
>The Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California also recently granted
>a Preliminary Injunction against the Internet posting of DeCSS.
Too bad. Has no jurisdiction in Australia.
>If you are bound by an injunction, maintaining the DeCSS utility on your
Which you are not.
>system or network violates the above injunction[s] and risks court
>sanctions for contempt.
You can't contempt a court you are not within the juridiction of.
>We hereby demand that you:
Yes they can demand all they like. Bit like certain film makers demanding
the handing over of domai names that they dont even have trademarks on!
>1) take appropriate steps to cause immediate removal of DeCSS from the
>above identified URL, along with such other actions as may be necessary or
>appropriate to suspend this illegal activity;
It's not illegal. Shame they didn't check their laws first :)
>2) provide appropriate notice to the subscriber or account holder
>responsible for the presence of DeCSS on your system or network, advising
>him/her of the contents of this notice and directing that person to
>contact the undersigned immediately at the e-mail address provided above;
You don't have to do that.
>3) advise us of the name and physical address of the person operating this
>site; and
You don't have to do that either. Unless they lodge with a local court,
and that's not likely to be upheld anyway.
>4) maintain, and take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the
>destruction of, all records, including electronic records, in your
>possession or control respecting this URL, account holder or subscriber.
Good luck. Imagine the proxy servers, caches, thousands of users ....
>Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Your immediate response is
>requested.
Response is simple:
Dear MPAA,
I have received your letter dated DATE. I am sorry I am unable to help you
with your request. The resources you indicate are used for Research and
Development of technology and therefore subject to the rights under the
Copyright Act.
If you have any further queries, please consult a Solicitor. Please note
that further communications with regards to this matter will be charged to
you at a rate of $4 per minute and invoiced to your organisation as
consultancy.
>The information in this notification is accurate, and we declare, under
Well it's not accurate :)
>penalty of perjury, that the Motion Picture Association is authorized to
>act on behalf of the owner[s] of exclusive rights described above.
Then they can be charged with purjury!
>Should you have any questions, please contact us at the above listed
>address.
What questions?
>Respectfully,
>The Motion Picture Association
Yes always is respectful :)
<sigh>
If there was one good thing the Aussie Government did with Technology it
was allow reverse engineering :)
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe in the text
