Wikipedia protest shutdown

Discussion in 'World Events' started by arfa brane, Jan 17, 2012.

  1. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Because you had been arguing that those things are perfectly legal and above-board.

    Now you appear to admit that they are clearly illegal and cannot be distributed or imported or used in the USA legally.

    Yeah, I went into exactly that in the post that you quoted there. Do you even read the posts that you respond to, or just hit "quote," cherry-pick a few sentences, and then insist that they're wrong?

    Anyway, again: the reason for Elcomsoft's acquittal was not that the software was legal (as you were suggesting above), but that the jury did not find any evidence of willful intent to infringe, which is a requirement of a criminal charge under the DMCA. That still leaves them open to civil issues with Adobe, but they'd actually squared their situation with Adobe before the criminal trial, by ceasing to market or distribute the software once Adobe notified them.
     
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  3. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, I misspoke. It is, indeed, illegal under the DMCA to distribute the source code to DeCSS in the first place.

    http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/NY/

    The other case you mentioned dealt only with a California trade secrets law. It was found that dissemination of DeCSS source code does not violate that law, because DeCSS no longer qualifies as a "trade secret." But it remains illegal to distribute it under the DMCA, since it is a tool for bypassing copy protection/encryption.
     
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  5. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    That's a Canadian website. You can tell from the ".ca" in the URL. It has no bearing on what the DMCA does or does not cover (at least, not without some new SOPA type laws to get such things blocked in the USA).

    But not because their product was found to be legal, only because they were found not to have willfully violated the DMCA (which is a requirement for criminal charges under the DMCA). The product in question remains legally unavailable in the USA to this day.
     
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  7. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    No, it wasn't.

    No it wasn't, it was substantially more complicated than that - part of the argument was that the drive locking and hand shaking that takes place when you insert the DVD, which is all part of the CSS procedure did not take place when the player viewed the material from the hard drive, because there are physical processes involved that can not be replicated, and happen only once, but are still part of the CSS, so when you watch it subsequently from the hard drive (and every time you watch it from the hard drive) because you are bypassing the CSS to do so, it is a violation of the DMCA.

    Also note that the same case held that the fact that the CSS keys were freely available on the internet was not a valid defense, neither was the fact that Real networks held a license for using CSS technology, and finally, neither was the fact that they were enabling consumers to exercise their 'fair use' rights.

    And what have I been saying the entire time - that the decryption of CSS for any reason other than the authorized use of the DVD - which is restricted to watching it, is illegal under the DCMA.

    Have you actually been following my arguments? Are you only just realizing what I have been saying for the last just shy of 200 posts in this thread:

    That you have been vehemently objecting to.

    Right, because they would then be illegal under the DCMA, and without that decryption code, they can only backup unecrypted DVD's.

    Yeah, instead of being sold as illegal software, they're sold as legal software to which illegal software can be downloaded and added as a module.
     
  8. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Adoucette's position has become a total hash, especially in the last couple of pages. The only clear position he seems to hold, is that he is absolutely correct and everyone else is egregiously wrong and foolish for challenging him. This results in inanity when recognition that's he wrong starts to creep in, and so he thrashes around as we see here in some kind of silly attempt to extricate himself without admitting any error.
     
  9. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    And yet, after all of this you can't find any case law to support your position that I'm wrong.

    It's all been arguing about Red Herrings dragged across the trail about how the DMCA has been used against various corporations for selling solutions.

    But using those rulings the companies have gotten around the DMCA and so now they indeed can sell a solution that consumers can use to legally make back-up copies.

    Which they have been doing.
    Every day.
    By the millions.
    For years.

    Indeed, as the case law has suggested, it's been a long and winding road to get here, but yet here we are.
     
  10. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    No, the key argument is that people can make back up copies legally.
    The rest has been an interesting look into how this came to be, but is not the issue.

    Well the interesting thing is while that may be true, you apparently break no law by downloadiing it from their site.
     
  11. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Is that what you think?

    Because anyone who reads this thread is going to find a slew of citations of legal texts, rulings and expert opinions saying that you are wrong, and none backing up your positions.

    Except for all the parts where you keep altering and hedging your positions, and assigning strawman positions to others, of course.

    But not of encrypted DVDs. For that, you have to illegaly download illegal software to do the - illegal - decryption.

    I'm also wondering whether you haven't created some legal liabilities for SciForums by repeatedly posting links to illegal software, spreading misinformation as to its legality, etc. I guess they should be okay, since AFAIK the servers are not located in the USA, but I'd advise a bit more caution on your part before posting links to content of disputed legality. At the minimum, you should be checking with the SciForums admins/owners before posting such questionable material.

    Not of encrypted DVDs, they can't. That requires obtaining banned software, and then violating the DMCA by using it to bypass encryption.

    You clearly do violate the DMCA by downloading that program. As you have just admitted, right there.

    Your hedge of "apparently" is intended, apparently, to imply that... what? No SWAT team is going to helicopter into your home and drag you to federal prison for doing so? Or... ? Is this like how I "apparently" break no laws by jaywalking or exceeding the speed limit by only a few mph (i.e., in the sense that citations for such are exceedingly rare)? "Illegal-but-rarely-enforced" is still "illegal." As in, "it is illegal to bypass DVD encryption for the purpose of making a personal back-up copy."

    Again, how about you call up the MPAA's lawyers, and ask them whether they think it's kosher to download such programs from foreign sites. Then ask them why they aren't more proactive about suing individuals who download such.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2012
  12. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    There is no getting around the DMCA to circumvent any form of DRM for the purpose of making a backup copy until 10A and 10B are passed into law.
     
  13. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Bull. You have shown no case where an individual has lost in court for making a back up copy of a DVD.

    Get back to me when you have one.
     
  14. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't say that I had a case where "an individual lost in court for making a back up copy of a DVD." That's just another of your childish straw man attacks, deployed to disguise the clear fact that you spent so much time and energy here talking out of your ass. And it's pretty foolish for you to trot it out again, right after both myself and Trippy have repeatedly called you on exactly this tactic. Who do you think you're fooling?

    What I did say, is that we had definitive court rulings, legal texts and expert opinions stating that there is no legal way to bypass the DVD encryption required to make such a copy.

    You provided one yourself, right here:

    http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2895689&postcount=495

    “So while it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally owned DVD on that individual’s computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies,”

    So she zeroed in on what was illegal in the Federal Law, not the consumer making a backup, but that it was specifically the manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies that was illegal under Federal Law​

    So, indeed, under the citation that you yourself provided, we have a Federal judge stating definitively that there is no legal means for a consumer to bypass DVD encryption, and so no legal means to make such a copy. If you have such a "device or tool" in your possession, then you clearly, unambiguously violated US Federal law in order to obtain it.

    Given which, one wonders at your repeated linking to, and endorsement of, exactly such tools in this thread, along with your strenuous insistence that legal sanction is totally unlikely for their use. Since when are you such a full-throated advocate of willfull lawbreaking, exactly?
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2012
  15. Gustav Banned Banned

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    12,575
    thats all fine and well, quad, but none of you guys have a meaningful response to the main thrust of adoucette's argument.....


     
  16. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    But that self serving interpretation is not what she said.

    She does not ever say there is "no legal means for a consumer to bypass DVD encryption"

    What she concludes is there was no way for a company to made a legal device that could do so.

    And none do.

    But Consumers can indeed put such a tool together during the install of the software and if only used for their own personal use they are not manufacturing or trafficking in that product so fall outside of the DMCA.

    You can argue all you want about that, but the actual facts are that this is going on every day and no suits or charges have been filed against anyone supports my interpretation not yours.

    And had the law stopped there, I think it would have been challenged, BUT the law didn't stop there and an interesting suit was filed about the same time and the conclusions of that suit, reinforced the right of consumers fair use.

    That suit was Chaimberlain vs Skylink, with Chamberlain suing Skylink using the DMCA as their rational.

    Chamberlain lost, but in doing so, gave the court the opportunity to discuss the INTENT of the DMCA.

    They ruled in favor of the users expectation of copyright fair use.

    Note, that last bit is crucial because it puts the burden of proof on the Copyright owner and only allows liability for uses the Copyright Act allows to be prohibited against. But MULTIPLE rulings have already established that digital copies for personal use (and for format shifting) are NOT infringing. And as was stated before, circumvention is not infringement.

    Which essentially kicked the legal legs out of any further attempts to take users making copies of DVDs for purely personal use to court.

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.c.../20040831_Skylink_Federal_Circuit_Opinion.pdf
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2012
  17. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    7,829
    Links to those sites were simply to show that many versions of the DVD copy programs exist and that they sell millions of copies of the software to do a normal user task, of backing up your Digital Data, or shifting it to different formats, which you have admittd are clearly fair use actions and yet still you claim doing so is illegal even thought the evidence suggests the totally opposite conclusion.

    That conclusion is based on the many years that these programs have been in existence and the many millions of users of these programs and yet no one has been arrested/sued over their use for making copies for personal use.

    So no, I'm not advocating willful lawbreaking, I'm advocating that even with the DMCA that consumers retain their same normal fair use of copyrighted material that they purchase as was affirmed in court cases for Records, VCR tapes and Audio CDs and the fact that the DVD data is encrypted doesn't make your normal actions under fair use illegal even if the DMCA makes manufacturing and selling something for that purpose illegal.

    As the judge said: the DMCA emphatically did not“fundamentally alter” the legal landscape governing the reasonable expectations of consumers and The DMCA does not create a new property right for copyright owners. Nor, for that matter, does it divest the public of the property rights that the Copyright Act has long granted to the public.
     
  18. Gustav Banned Banned

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    12,575

    sure you are
    millions do it and so can you

    please stop raping content creators up the ass
    thanks
     
  19. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Claiming people have the legal right to make a copy of a DVD they have purchased, for backup or format shifting, is not hurting content creators in any way.

    Quit lying.

    Thanks
     
  20. Gustav Banned Banned

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    12,575
    upon your demise (hopefully soon), will your back up copies be destroyed or be part of your children's inheritance?

    i mean the purchased copy is 10 years old and practically unplayable.

    will your child then make a back up copy of the inherited back up copy and pass it down to her child?

    eh? eh?

    is it not the case that generations of your family will subsist on that single copy of a movie that you purchased at a used store?

    who got paid?
     
  21. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, just like they will do with my book collection.

    The Publisher and Artists, who got paid once for each copy that was originally sold, just like the books in my collection

    Why do you think Artists and Publishers should get paid more often just because the digital media we are using is not as archival quality as a book?
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2012
  22. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    9,391
    She did not mention "a company." What she said was, verbatim:

    This is very clear: any entity (company, individual, or otherwise) who manufactures or traffics in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies, is violating the DMCA.

    No, what you are describing is exactly the (prohibited) manufacture of such a tool. Which the judge just clearly indicated is a violation of the DMCA.

    It does not, liar. For about the 20th time: both our interpretations hold that individual users being taken to court for making back-ups is extremely unlikely. There is no difference between our positions in that regard, and so no way to use such as a razor to distinguish them.

    Interesting interpretation, but that still leaves users without any legal way to obtain the tools required to make the copies.
     
  23. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Nobody has disputed any of that stuff. So one wonders why you keep harping away on it.

    Not a single one of your linked programs is both able to copy encrypted DVDs, and be legally obtained inside the United States.

    You have repeatedly advocated for people to obtain illegal decryption software. And you have gone so far as to post direct links to exactly such software. Any American who does what you suggest, will be breaking the law.

    Nobody has disputed that - so why do you keep harping on it?

    So you agree - there is no legal way to obtain the tools required to make such copies, in the USA. We have the right to make such copies, but are prohibited by law from obtaining the tools required to do so.
     

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