James A. Donald writes:
> It is a test of will and power. Kaplan took offense at the widespread
> attitude that such an act was beyond the power of a judge, that judges not
> only should not censor thei internet, but that they *could* not censor the
> internet, that the internet was stronger than the judiciary.
He's welcome to take offsense. He's even welcome to take action. But
in the end, has he been successful? Will he ever be successful? What
are the minimum qualifications necessary to get your hands on a copy
of DeCSS? By the time this is all over, and the issue has been
decided, DeCSS will be available in a thousand different places and a
thousand different formats.
For example, I'm openly publishing a copy of DeCSS on my home page.
How stupid do you have to be to not "get it"?
For example, one of these days, some popular artist's CD is going to
come with a bonus load of bits. After it's been a million-seller, the
activist is going to explain how to extract files from songs. No
longer will you need to play a vinyl disk backwards to get the secret
message. What do you try to suppress? The CD? Not possible. The
information on how to extract? It'll be nothing more than a 1024-bit
number. So now the government declares posession of a number illegal.
And there is *nothing* any judge can do about it. Governments have
a binary (I love the irony of it) choice: give up the economic
benefits of digital medium, or give up legal restrictions on
distribution of information.
--
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