Censoring a Number? MPAA strikes back!

[akrako1]

from Slashdot.org:

Your Rights Online: Censoring a Number
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 01, @03:44PM
from the you-can't-copyright-that dept.
Censorship
Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance http://entangledstate.wordpress.com/ was killed. More disturbingly, my story http://rudd-o.com/archives/2007/04/30/spread-this-number/ got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?"

More details at:
http://rudd-o.com/archives/2007/04/30/spread-this-number/

...

The movie industry is threatening Spooky Action at a Distance for publishing that number, specifically with copyright infringement.

I had no idea a number could be copyrighted.

Anyhow, what is it? From the site:

It’s the HD-DVD Processing Key for most movies released so far. I was not aware that a string of numbers and letters was copyrightable. Perhaps its just my ignorance but it seems that someone is abusing the DMCA again.

This means the (admittedly long) number is precisely the key you need in order to decrypt and watch HD-DVD movies in Linux (oh, okay, maybe software is also required). And the fact that it’s out there, spreading like wildfire, is killing the types at the movie studios right now.

...

[BJ_M]

once its on the net - it cant be stopped

[BJ_M]

btw -- more info here also http://09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63.com/

[thecoalman]

once its on the net - it cant be stopped

That's about it too, I wonder why they even bother. If the video has already been ripped the cats out of the bag.

[thecoalman]

If anyone is interested this has apparently turned into a huge revolt.. In there attempt to stop they've pretty much let everyone know what it is. Check out www.digg.com

[celtic_druid]

Hopefully someone gets charged/sued for abusing the DMCA with the take down notices.

[paulw]

Hopefully someone gets charged/sued for abusing the DMCA with the take down notices.

Unlikly as the MPAA and the like own the US Gov and it police force..

[guns1inger]

I kinda miss ROF when these posts come up. They seem one-sided without his mindless pandering to the industry and staunch defense of their gestapo-like tactics. Memories.

[thecoalman]

digg.com going to fight takedown notice.

http://blog.digg.com/?p=74

.... after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Now that's my kind of attitude but I doubt it was because of the users but becuse they saw their web business evaporating before their eyes...

[celtic_druid]

The only real choice really. Fact is though that I can't see how the notices would stand up.

How can the copyright a hexadecimal number? The key came from a memory dump and was I believe plain text. The people posting it aren't the ones who found it. AACS hasn't actually been broken, so nothing has been circumvented. It could also be viewed as a form of reverse engineering for interoperability reasons (such as Linux playback) or educational purposes.

[Seeker47]

once its on the net - it cant be stopped

I posted a reply to this a couple days ago, in this very thread. Seems to have been pulled. (Are they zapping individual posts now ? Or is this just rampant paranoia ?) If individual posts are being removed, at least own up to it . . . .

Anyway, to recap what I said the first time: Yeah, it probably can be stopped, if by that one means making it so hard to find that most people will give up after a lot of searching. Examples: FixVTS, MenuShrink, PSL2 plugin final version 2.21. And others. You can probably still find these on some site in the Ukraine, if you're willing to search aggressively for a couple weeks, and your reading of Russian is up to it. Newsgroups and P2P may improve your odds a bit. Blogs can keep textual info in circulation. But reasonably findable downloads on the general 'Net -- Yeah, those can be effectively stopped, and I think we've been seeing the proof of that.

[Noahtuck]

once its on the net - it cant be stopped

I posted a reply to this a couple days ago, in this very thread. Seems to have been pulled. (Are they zapping individual posts now ? Or is this just rampant paranoia ?) If individual posts are being removed, at least own up to it . . . .

A couple of day's ago eh... in this same thread eh.....
That's a pretty good trick seeing as this thread is not even 24 hours old yet 8)

Did someone say... PARANOIA

[Bondiablo]

Oh Nine, Eff Nine...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9HaNbsIfp0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Aqo9Git0Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6cWpG5K0PY

[gadgetguy]

I kinda miss ROF when these posts come up. They seem one-sided without his mindless pandering to the industry and staunch defense of their gestapo-like tactics. Memories.

You know, none of this would be necessary if all of you criminals would stop stealing from the movie makers and just buy the same movies over and over again in whatever format they dictate is the best for your needs. Since you did not create the content, you have no right to determine your own needs and it would be better if we could return to the good old days when they got to dictate when you could watch too.


There, feel better now?

[guns1inger]

close, not quite sycophantic enough. Thanks for trying though

[Marvingj]

Its always about the Almighty Dollar...........

[oldandinthe way]

Many years ago, when I was a corporate executive, I was seated in first class on a flight from New York to LA.

Sitting next to me was an gentlemen who was a senior movie studio executive and we spent the floght in conversation. He was part of the first wave of studio execs with a new qualification - he was a lawyer. Since then he has been joined by many of his collegaues at the helm of major studios.

It is no wonder why film quality sucks, revenues are off and overwhelming attention of management is on DRM, DCMA, litigation and threats. These are the only skills these individuals have.

Once upon a time studios were headed by people who loved movies, needed to gratify their self-image by making great films and would take risks to do so. No longer.

[painkiller]

Wow.

That explains a lot.

[yoda313]

Once upon a time studios were headed by people who loved movies, needed to gratify their self-image by making great films and would take risks to do so. No longer

I don't know sort of sounds like George Lucas and Steven Speilberg to me (Now that they practically own their own movie studios that is )

[oldandinthe way]

Believe it or not, they were people like Jack Warner and Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer. Not creative types like Lucas or Spielberg but immigrant businessmen who were hard as nails but loved movies, and feeding their egos. (And getting laid).

[adam]

How can the copyright a hexadecimal number? The key came from a memory dump and was I believe plain text. The people posting it aren't the ones who found it. AACS hasn't actually been broken, so nothing has been circumvented.

The DMCA notices do not, and could not, argue that there is any copyright protection in the key or number itself. The argument is that the key is a tool used to circumvent the protection mechanism that protects the content on the disc. Its the content of the disc that is copyrighted. You don't have to break AACS to circumvent it. The DMCA defines circumvention as, among other things, unauthorized decryption of encrypted content. In other words, the key is there to be used for authorized decryption during playback. But to use that same key to do unauthorized decryption, say to copy the content to a computer and strip it of the AACS protection, is circumventing that encryption.

It could also be viewed as a form of reverse engineering for interoperability reasons (such as Linux playback) or educational purposes.

I agree, but the DMCA still substantially limits the distribution of such things. If we were dealing with a linux software player that implemented this AACS workaround and the acquired keys, than I think that would be very different. But posting keys online for no particular purpose, when they can so easily be used for "you know what"...I don't think that is going to fall within any exception. At least not without some attempt to frame the posting as such.

It will be interesting to see if the industry follows through though since it seems pretty pointless, and if diggs is given a break since the nature of their site is that the postings are relatively uncontrollable.

To be honest, I think this will all just blow over in a couple of days.

[FulciLives]

I kinda miss ROF when these posts come up. They seem one-sided without his mindless pandering to the industry and staunch defense of their gestapo-like tactics. Memories.

You know, none of this would be necessary if all of you criminals would stop stealing from the movie makers and just buy the same movies over and over again in whatever format they dictate is the best for your needs. Since you did not create the content, you have no right to determine your own needs and it would be better if we could return to the good old days when they got to dictate when you could watch too.

There, feel better now?

close, not quite sycophantic enough. Thanks for trying though

LOL

ROF's last post on VIDEOHELP.COM --->

[ViRaL1]

Let them try to censor this...

http://www.shirtaday.com/

[SCDVD]

I kinda miss ROF when these posts come up. They seem one-sided without his mindless pandering to the industry and staunch defense of their gestapo-like tactics. Memories.

Actually I always felt he was a ripper - big time. He reminded me of a drug dealer with "Just Say No" and "Support Your Local Police" bumper stickers on his car.

[Bronx]

Actually I always felt he was a ripper - big time. He reminded me of a drug dealer with "Just Say No" and "Support Your Local Police" bumper stickers on his car.

That is the sh*t I've read today.

[mar-mar]

wow this crazy and beyond, i have to get one of those shirts

[TooLFooL]

here's another great t-shirt!....

http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?productID=992&catID=-1&affID=-1&n=95