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----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen  -----

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 12:50:34 -0800
From: Rick Moen 
To: bray@globe.com
Subject: What DeCSS is and isn't
X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i

Dear Hiawatha:

After coming back from the DVD DCC hearing in San Jose (which was
interesting, and the judge will issue his decision this afternoon),
I came across your _Globe_ piece, "Web sites sued for DVD piracy".

There are a few things you ought to know, for further coverage:

You wrote:  "At issue is the question of whether Web site operators can
help distribute a piece of software that can defeat the security system
built into millions of DVDs, thus enabling people to make illegal
copies."

Um, no.  DeCSS isn't _relevant_ to copying.  Period.  I will explain.

You can copy a movie (or other) DVD on Linux as follows:  Install the
UDF filesystem driver (a beta).  Connect your DVD player to your
machine's SCSI port.  Insert DVD disc.  Mount the filesystem.  Do an
"ls" (directory command).  You will now see a directory of extremely,
obscenely large (many gigs' worth) files, one or more of which are
encrypted MPEGs.  Those MPEGs are the movie(s).

Copy the DVDs filesystem (or even just the individual MPEG files,
actually).  Burn a new one onto recordable DVD media, using a read-write
player.  Congratulations, your copy is 100% as usable as the original.

By the way, you've just spent something like $50 on raw media cost, plus
the cost of your read-write player, your expertise and trouble, and a
fearsome amount of your time.  Realising this, you feel properly
sheepish, because you could have bought that second copy of _The Matrix_ 
in a nice jewel box with liner notes for much less time, trouble, and 
money.  With better quality control, and a warranty.

So, what's DeCSS about?

It's for _viewing_, not copying.   It lets you read an encrypted MPEG,
from either a legit DVD or a bootleg one you made at ridiculous expense,
on the operating system of your choice, on the continent of your choice.

The DVD consortium is applying pressure because it has (already) lost 
control over where and on what machines you read your legitimately-
bought DVD discs on.

DeCSS allows users on Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS, and many other operating
systems gain access to the DVD movies they paid for, an ability they
never had before October 1999.

It also means the DVD trade associations can no longer prevent such users
from playing a European DVD in Boston, or a US-made DVD in Japan.  The
industry tries to prevent exactly such usage.

One might argue that the industry had a right to prevent all of those
uses.  I wouldn't contest that -- but just would point out that the
entertainment industry chose an incompetently designed and implemented 
method to enforce its will, an algorithm that was broken with very
little effort.  Indeed, if anyone might have good cause to sue in this
picture, it's the MPAA:  against the DVD Copy Control Association Inc.,
and whoever else concocted this technical travesty in the first place.

And, more to the point, those issues have nothing at all -- zip, nada --
to do with "illegal copying" or "DVD piracy".

I'd appreciate it if you'd so inform your readers.

Thanks very much.

-- 
Cheers,                            "I'd say it's latke-esque.  Sort of like 
Rick Moen                           Kafka-esque, only less depressing."      
rick (at) linuxmafia.com                             -- Deirdre Saoirse

----- End forwarded message -----

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