Hackers, Others Take DVD Complaint To The Streets

There's nothing like a little bit of controversy in the DVD arena to get the hackers, open source community, and civil liberties groups to rise up in protest. Hackers, open source proponents, and free speech organizations plan to take their beef over DVD decryption technology with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) off the Internet and into the streets on Friday, February 4, 2000, according to a press release distributed by hacker/programmer Web site 2600.com. In this case the action revolves around Hollywood's attempt to shut down techies who are using a program, supposedly generated in Norway, that defeats DVD encryption codes. Two judges in separate federal cases have ordered a number of Web sites to remove the offending code, while the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is arguing in both cases that the DVD encryption system does not meet the minimum required standard for a trade secret. 2600, meanwhile, is looking for street protests against what they see as the restricting legal threats of the motion picture industry, outside movie theaters, and video stores in 74 cities in North America and another 26 cities worldwide. The demonstration is not merely one of solidarity for 2600.com, the Web site noted, saying that it has been named in two lawsuits because of the DeCSS program. The hacker community is defending its perceived right to possess the DeCSS computer program, which supposedly was written by a Norwegian 16-year-old. The program can tear down the DVD's encryption technology, allowing movies to be watched on ""non-approved machines"" and computers, and also allow the foreign transfer of DVDs on previously non-compatible players. The MPAA and several large Hollywood movie studios claim that DeCSS users are engaging in intellectual property piracy, and have sued three Web sites in a New York federal court for DVD piracy. Norwegian authorities at the best of US law enforcement already have questioned the 16-year-old, programmer Jon Johansen. A missive on the 2600.com Web site, meanwhile, claims that the issue is not one of piracy, but of control: ""whether you have the right to play DVDs on the computer of your choice and whether you should be able to see DVDs from other countries."" The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) currently is fighting a similar battle in California, and recently encountered an incidental trade secret blunder of its own when it published the Content Scrambling System code for unlocking DVDs in public court documents.