On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Brian Ristuccia wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 06, 2000 at 01:22:58PM -0700, John Galt wrote:
> >
> > By the SDNY's injunction being as broad as it is, I would submit that
> > libcss is under injunction. You know the text of the injunction,
> > Brian--I've seen your comments on it on the harvard list. In fact,
> > you could read that the injunction applies to every warm body on Earth and
> > every program that looks like it could possibly transfer a bit off a
> > DVD. The MPAA picked a good judge--he stayed bought. However, this is
> > needless worrying about probability.
>
> An injunction applies only to the people named in it. Debian is not named in
> this injunction. Software in the Public Interest is not named in the
> injunction. AFIK, nobody that runs any of the Debian master or mirror
sites
> is named. So long as the package maintainer is also not named in the
> injunction, nobody's violating the injunction.
1. The Remaining Defendants, their officers, agents, servants,
employees and
attorneys and all persons in active concert or participation with them who
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
receive actual notice of this
order by personal service or otherwise be and they hereby are permanently
^^^^^^^^^^^^
enjoined and restrained
from:
By my read, they have to prove you in active concert. This could be
done by providing proof that you supplied a copy of DeCSS for download,
which the court defined as:
(i) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing, or circumventing the protection afforded by, CSS, or any
other
technological measure adopted by plaintiffs that effectively controls
access to
plaintiffs' copyrighted works or effectively protects the plaintiffs'
rights to
control whether an end user can reproduce, manufacture, adapt, publicly
perform and/or distribute unauthorized copies of their copyrighted works
or
portions thereof;
(ii) has only limited commercially significant purposes or use other
than to circumvent, or to circumvent the protection afforded by, CSS, or
any
other technological measure adopted by plaintiffs that effectively
controls
access to plaintiffs' copyrighted works or effectively protects the
plaintiffs'
rights to control whether an end user can reproduce, manufacture, adapt,
publicly perform and/or distribute unauthorized copies of their
copyrighted
works or portions thereof; or
Since Debian has no commercial significance, basically anything that could
be used to circumvent CSS is enjoined. So the only thing lacking right
now is service. How many John Does were listed and served in the Cali
case? Do you really think that the DVDCCA is going to let the prospect of
serving even thousands of FTPmasters sway them from tryng to extend the
injunction they bought?
> Immagine the following situation: A person in a group typically stereotyped
> by media and law enforcement as "shady" is falsely accused of using and
> distributing a packet sniffer tool for Microsoft Windows called wnsniff in
> order to conduct or help others conduct unlawful wiretaps. A civil lawsuit
> is filed in federal court. The person prepares for trial with inadequite
> time and legal representation, faces a biased judge, and get enjoined from
> using or distributing packet sniffers. The decision is appealed.
You forgot that the injunction is overbroad, and quite possibly criminally
so. Basically, all the MPAA needs to do is to associate Debian with the
Open Source movement (there's a tough row to hoe...:)--remember that in
the trial, Johansen's link to 2600 was because Johansen was a member of
the Open Source movement, and the injunction magically includes
Debian. It would be foolish to discount the possibility that it will
happen.
> Would Debian refuse to permit packet sniffers such as tcpdump and ethereal
> in main just because they may be illegal for a small handful of people in
> the US to use or distribute? Would someone trying to package an ethernet
> sniffing library called libsniff see any trouble with their ITP? Of course
> not. Let's be reasonable here.
I never stated Debian shouldn't do it, just that it needs to be done with
full knowlege of the consequences: and those consequences ATM are that
there's a broadly worded injunction out there that may be construed as
applying to Debian and the maintainer. At this point, there's a value
judgement to be done: does the potential harm outweigh the potential
benefits. I just see no point in making that judgement while under the
delusion that the consequences won't happen, because they quite probably
will. My read is to do it, just be warned that it might be quickly
revoked, so get it quickly if you want it, and comply with the C & D when
(and if) it happens. Once it's on the user's machine, Debian has no
control of it (as is being evidenced in the "full text of the GPL" debate
ATM...) other than an assumed obligation to ensure the user has access to
updates as they are made available. Just ensure that there is no doubt in
anyone's mind as to the full consequences of the actions they
undertake--perhaps a debconf popup might be in order. I've a feeling that
there will be hundreds of people like me that will have a copy in
/var/cache/apt/archives and installed on their systems, depsite the fact
that I (and some of them...) avoid DVDs like the plague.
> > [other stuff deleted]
>
>
--
Pardon me, but you have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a
damn.
email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
