Slashdot.org: Defying DVD copyright suit. \nLOS ANGELES - The DVD industry has sued 72 hackers and Web-site authors for posting and even linking to software which unlocks the system for blocking illegal digital video disc copying, Wired reports. And one hacker-gathering Web site is hitting back by posting the software and related links as widely as possible.
The DVD Copyright Control Association suit charges each defendant with operating Internet sites "which disseminate confidential proprietary [scrambling] information." The group sued in California Superior Court Tuesday.
Hackers unlocked the DVD copying protection system and posted the how-tos on Web sites earlier this fall. Wired says motion picture industry attorneys were said to have contacted at least two programmers involved in creating the cracking utility, DeCSS, and asked them to delete the information from their Web sites.
The DeCSS source code was first posted online by a Norwegian, Jon Johansen, according to the lawsuit. The suit says the DVD protection was unlocked by hacking "and/or improperly reverse-engineering" CSS software created by a licensee known as Xing Technology Corporation.
One popular hacker gathering Web site, Slashdot, is named as a defendant for providing links to sites posting the hacking code. Seventeen other sites were also charged in the suit, Wired says. But the journal also says Slashdot organizers have a defense strategy: freely disseminating the cracking code, with encouragement that people copy and post it Web-wide.
"Make the code ubiquitous and it simply won't matter any more," said one Slashdot poster to Wired. The group apparently took up the strategy after industry attorneys first threatened a lawsuit, with a dozen activists posting copies of DeCSS online.
Johansen reportedly pulled his own DeCSS link down, saying in a November online letter, "I know very well that they would not win in court, but they could make a big mess out of it. I simply do not have the time, nor money, to go up against these people."
DVDs were supposed to be hack-proof, but a Norwegian group, Masters of Reverse, discovered how to get around it and raised "fears that illicit trading of digital movies could cost the entertainment industry millions," Wired says.
A posting by "Roblimo" on the Slashdot Web site (www.slashdot.org) calls the DVD CCA suit "the going-after-everybody-and-her-sister-dept." The posting quotes a letter from a Robert Jones saying the suit "will probably result in the bastards silencing us, but what can you do?"
Jones himself has a Web site (www.devzero.org) and has posted this on the matter: "Myself and many others have received notice that we will probably soon be served with restraining orders prohibiting us from distributing independently (sic) developed DVD decryption software. Please see my download page and get it while you still can…(a)ct now; by the end of the week myself and many others will probably have been legally forbidden to share this information freely with you."
