Tag: DMCA
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iPhone Unlocked; Legal Battle Looming?
In the past few days several groups declared victory in the battle to unlock the iPhone – to make the iPhone work on cellular networks other than AT&T’s. New Jersey teenager George Hotz published instructions (starting here) for a geeks-only unlock procedure involving hardware and software tweaks. An anonymous group called iPhoneSimFree reportedly has an…
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Finnish Court: Okay to Circumvent DVD DRM
A court in Finland ruled last week that it is not a violation of that nation’s anticircumvention law to circumvent CSS, the copy protection system in DVDs. Mikko Välimäki, one of the defense lawyers, has the best explanation I’ve seen. Finnish law bans the circumvention of “effective” DRM (copy protection) technologies. The court ruled that…
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What's the Biggest Impact of IT on Copyright?
On Saturday I gave a talk (“Rip, Mix, Burn, Sue: Technology, Politics, and the Fight to Control Digital Media”) for a Princeton alumni group in Seattle. The theme of the talk is that the rise of information technology is causing a “great earthquake” in media businesses. Many people believe that the biggest impact of IT…
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If It's Not Snake Oil, It's Pretty Awesome (Part 2)
Four years ago I wrote about a company called Music Public Broadcasting: In today’s Los Angeles Times, Jon Healey writes about a new DRM proposal from a company called Music Public Broadcasting. The company’s claims, which are not substantiated in the story, give off a distinct aroma of snake oil. I went on to document…
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You Can Own an Integer Too — Get Yours Here
Remember last week’s kerfuffle over whether the movie industry could own random 128-bit numbers? (If not, here’s some background: 1, 2, 3) Now, thanks to our newly developed VirtualLandGrab technology, you can own a 128-bit integer of your very own. Here’s how we do it. First, we generate a fresh pseudorandom integer, just for you.…
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Why the 09ers Are So Upset
The user revolt at Digg and elsewhere, over attempts to take down the now-famous “09 F9 …” number, is now all over the press. (Background: 1, 2) Many non-techies, including some reporters, wonder why users care so much about this. What is it about “09F9…” that makes people willing to defend it by making T-shirts,…
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Digg Users Revolt Over AACS Key
I wrote yesterday about efforts by AACS LA, the entity that controls the AACS copy protection system used in HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, to stop people from republishing a sixteen-byte cryptographic key that can unlock most existing discs. Much of the action took place at Digg, a site that aggregates Web page recommendations from many…
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AACS Plays Whack-a-Mole with Extracted Key
The people who control AACS, the copy protection technology used on HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, are apparently trying to shut down websites that publish a certain 128-bit integer. The number is apparently a “processing key” used in AACS. Together with a suitable computer program, the key allows the decryption of video content on most existing…
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Duck Amuck and the Takedown Gun
I wrote last week (1, 2) about the CopyBot tool in Second Life, which can make an exact lookalike copy of any object, and the efforts of users to contain CopyBot’s social and economic effects. Attempts to stop CopyBot by technology will ultimately fail – in a virtual world, anything visible is copyable – so…
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DMCA Exemptions Granted
Last Wednesday afternoon the U.S. Copyright Office released its list of DMCA exemptions for the next three years. The timing is interesting: releasing news in the afternoon of the day before Thanksgiving is a near-optimal strategy if you want that news to escape notice and coverage in the U.S. The purpose of these exemptions are…