[WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key

[George Herbert]

On 5/4/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/05/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> > The 2600 decision, according to the text of the decision, was almost
> > entirely based on the fact that 2600 was explicitly "trafficking" in
> > circumvention tools, since it was pretty much a "hey download this tool
> > here!" type of link.  The court took great pains to note that any sort
> > of academic or educational discussion of circumvention tools would be
> > protected.  Basically 2600 didn't even pretend to have a veneer of
> > academic discussion, so it was a completely different case; if _Wired_
> > were taken to court and lost, that would be much more similar to our
> > situation.  In fact in the years since the 2600 case, many dozens of
> > people have published such keys and circumvention devices in academic
> > and educational contexts, and none has lost a court case.
>
> None has lost one - has any been put through one?

Not entirely; there have been DMCA related threats made to
researchers, companies, conferences, and academic institutions.  Those
have resulted in pulled papers (most of which eventually were
published in alternate manners), cancelled talks at conferences, etc.

It's a mixed bag.  Neither side seems really interested in taking this
all the way to a scorched-earth, win or lose case.  MPAA has too much
to lose attacking academics (their deep fear is losing a case which
makes DMCA's tech bans unconstitutional, and academics have too many
possible research-related defenses).  They tend to try to intimidate
but not push too far.  Academics tend to publically talk that they're
sure they'd never lose, but the stories you hear from their attorneys
(and EFF attorneys, and such) are much more worried about the
implications of outright losing one of these as well.

MPAA don't have such inhibitions against random people on the net;
they're the people that they need to intimidate, and if they can't
with the law, then they've lost.

MPAA seem to be cogniscent of the fact that RIAA have destroyed their
industry's relationship with its consumer base, so they're being
somewhat careful, but I think they realize that bandwidth availibility
is enough to let people trade HD DVD movies en masse now and that if
they don't win this fight now (legally or via effective intimidation)
they're lost.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com