Re: Paypal WAS: PostgreSQL speakers needed for OSCON

On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 01:57:02 -0500,
"Keith C. Perry" <netadmin(at)vcsn(dot)com> wrote:
>
> True but in some case "enabling" is also a crime. Take the case with the guy
> who wanted to make a dvd player for linux. Even though he did nothing illegal
> the circuit court still deemed it illegal for the exploits and methods for DVD
> encryption to be available since in their option the only reason to have that
> information would be to copy a DVD with is "illegal". Again this guy gets a
> negative denotation associated with him because he, in reality, did nothing more
> than expose a technical failing in a technology and then use it to complete a
> project. Had commericial companies been more receptive to software DVD player
> at that time, weakness in the technology might not have never been exposed. It
> actually funny how we treat people sometimes.

John wasn't in the US. The MPAA tried to make an example of him by pressuring
the Norwegian government to go after him. Just with in the last week the
goverment decided not to appeal the case any further.

DVD encryption is not useful against real pirates. They can just copy the
entire DVD. It is used to enforce region codes and macrovision by forcing
DVD makers to aggree to that as part of their license to get decryption
keys so that they can make DVD players that can play encrypted disks.
Fortunately many of the Asian DVD player makers know that consumers don't
want DVD players which enforce region codes (and to some extent macrovision)
and somehow their test mode codes that disable these features somehow manage
to leak out on the internet after their product is on the shelves in major
markets.

Depending on where you live it isn't necessarily illegal to make copies
of a DVD, especially if it is a backup copy for your personal use.