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, writing songs, or subjecting their dotcom startup to lawsuit risk?
The answer has several parts. The first answer is that it's a reaction against censorship. Net users hate censorship and often respond by replicating the threatened content. When Web companies take down user-submitted content at the behest of big media companies, that looks like censorship. But censorship by itself is not the whole story.
The second part of the answer, and the one most often missed by non-techies, is the fact that the content in question is an integer – an ordinary number, in other words. The number is often written in geeky alphanumeric format, but it can be written equivalently in a more user-friendly form like 790,815,794,162,126,871,771,506,399,625. Giving a private party ownership of a number seems deeply wrong to people versed in mathematics and computer science. Letting a private group pick out many millions of numbers (like the AACS secret keys), and then simply declare ownership of them, seems even worse.
While it's obvious why the creator of a movie or a song might deserve some special claim over the use of their creation, it's hard to see why anyone should be able to pick a number at random and unilaterally declare ownership of it. There is nothing creative about this number – indeed, it was chosen by a method designed to ensure that the resulting number was in no way special. It's just a number they picked out of a hat. And now they own it?
As if that's not weird enough, there are actually millions of other numbers (other keys used in AACS) that AACS LA claims to own, and we don't know what they are. When I wrote the thirty-digit number that appears above, I carefully avoided writing the real 09F9 number, so as to avoid the possibility of mind-bending lawsuits over integer ownership. But there is still a nonzero probability that AACS LA thinks it owns the number I wrote.
When the great mathematician Leopold Kronecker wrote his famous dictum, "God created the integers; all else is the work of man", he meant that the basic structure of mathematics is part of the design of the universe. What God created, AACS LA now wants to take away.
The third part of the answer is that the link between the 09F9 number and the potential harm of copyright infringement is pretty tenuous. AACS LA tells everyone who will listen that the discovery and distribution of the 09F9 number is no real threat to the viability of AACS or the HD-DVD/Blu-ray formats. A person getting the 09F9 number could, if he or she is technically skillful, invest a lot of work to get access to movies. But there are easier, less tech-intensive ways to get the same movies. Publishing the number has approximately zero impact on copyright infringement.
Which brings us to the civil disobedience angle. It's no secret that many in the tech community despise the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions. If you're going to defy a law to show your disagreement with it, you'll look for a situation where (1) the application of the law is especially inappropriate, (2) your violation does no actual harm, and (3) many others are doing the same thing so the breadth of opposition to the law is evident. That's what we see here.
It will be interesting to see what AACS LA does next. My guess is that they'll cut their losses, refrain from sending demand letters and filing lawsuits, and let the 09F9 meme run its course.
Front page posts
There's two reasons for (3), above -- one is that you add to the momentum of something that has a lot, and is more likely to get noticed or have an effect. The other is the safety-in-numbers factor. If they (law enforcement, the MPAA, whoever) picks out a few people to be made into examples, it's less likely your number will come up if you're one of millions versus if you're one of only hundreds of possible choices. Of course, prominence is a risk factor...
THE CODE IS: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
IN DECIMAL IT'S:13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION, FUCK COPYRIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for you good coverage of this issue.
The AACS LA isn't actually claiming that they own the number. They're claiming the number is violating the DMCA's ban on circumvention devices.
This isn't a failing of copyright law, but more the DMCA.
Fred von Lohmann at the EFF wrote a good article that talks about this designation: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005229.php
As long as AACS LA has a committee mentality it will be unable to adapt - only individuals have that capability - obtained through freedom of thought.
If your remit is to achieve the impossible, your only hope is to be cunning in demonstrating that impossibility to those who gave you the remit.
Frankly, it will NOT be interesting to see what AACS LA does next. Unsurprisingly, it will again demonstrate the folly of their mission.
Sigh ... I'm just going to tell myself to keep my head down and not tilt at windmills :-(.
The key is now prominently displayed at http://www.againstmonopoly.org/ and can (as of this writing) still be found on wikipedia, though it's harder. It's been redacted from articles and censored from talk pages, but that just makes it visible in the history pages. :)
It's still there, though someone I know said they e-maild the MPAA about it, I don't think it would work though :-)
"What God created, AACS LA now wants to take away."
Ha! I knew it!
God Sues All IP Holders
Yehuda
I dont think people get the point. This is not about ownership of a particular number. This is about movie studios protecting a copyrighted material. Why is everyone so up in arms about it? You dont see Microsoft suing AstaLaVista.com, do you?
You know what is going to happen now? AACS is going to change the key, the public one is not going to work any more and it will all go away, until someone figures it out again.
This is the equivalent of an automobile manufacturer selling you a car, then suing you for opening the hood to change your own oil. The whole thing is absurd. For technology to progress, people need to break the mousetrap so they can build a better one. Punishing smart people for forcing corporations to develop and upgrade better technologies goes against progress. A sad commentary on the decline of our civilization...
You can't say that people should be able to control use of a song or movie but not to own particular numbers, because a digital version of a song or movie is also just a number, albeit a much larger one than the AACS key that is currently in question. To have copyright protection of digital works at all necessitates giving copyright owners the right to restrict the dissemination of certain very large numbers.
I think your coverage of this topic, and the "you can't own a random number" perspective promoted on bOINGbOING are slightly dishonest. The individual components of this string may have been chosen randomly, but the string is information. It is made meaningful by the components that know it. The same is true of any song or other intellectual property. Aside from the human brain, the mathematical representation of "Unchained Melody" is meaningless. We don't say it has no copyright protection because of that.
The real problem here is not that copyright laws are so inherently irrational, but that people don't like them. Users simply want to have access to the code. The real question is whether they should have the right to utilize a product they purchased in the way they want.
Something I wrote a while back to put it into plain language:
an automobile company is going to get wind of this (DMCA) anti-circumvention clause. And what they'll do is build a car with an electronic lock in the hood that only they or a dealer can open. And then they'll sue any independent garage or car owner who tries to pop the hood without permission. You won't be able to work on your own car. And you'll have to go to a dealer for all your parts and repairs.
I don't buy your argument that nobody can own a number. All digital files can be thought of as numbers, and (for better or for worse) we can own the contents of some digital files, so we can own numbers.
Why isn't this number-ownership extremely oppressive? Because there are so *many* numbers. There are about 10^39 different 128-bit numbers. The chances of accidentally selecting one of the million owned 128-bit numbers is therefore 1 in 10^33: negligible.
Moreover, it's really the act of pointing out a specific number rather than that number just existing which causes infringement. If you had a hypothetical website with every possible 128-bit number (which would require a hard disk array more massive than Jupiter, assuming 1-pound 1 TB hard drives), I doubt you would be taken down for hosting owned 128 bit numbers, since there's no way a visitor would know which ones are secret. Indeed, it would take at least 128 bits of information to point to any specific 128-bit number on the site, which is why I say it's the act of pointing to a number (by saying "this number can be used as an HD DVD crack", or "that number might sound good as an .mp3", etc.) that causes the infringement.
What do you think?
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The issue isn't this simple, I'm afraid. Numbers in the abstract may be ownerless, but this is not a number in the abstract. Context matters, too. I bet I can think of a nine-digit number--your SSN--that you'd not only claim to own but that you'd be really upset if somebody put in a LOLcats, especially attached to your name. What's the problem? It's just a number. Your phone number is just ten digits, too, but given the right context, it'd be pretty easy to see how giving one of those away to the general public could be harassment. How about the sixteen in your credit or debit cards? Or your bank account numbers?
There is a perfectly valid complaint that the modern corporate approach to goods is that you are buying a license to use a product in a specified manner, not a product that you can use however you wish. That's a recent change, and one that I think is damning in its own right. Please don't conflate the real problem with a specious argument that "the key is just a number," because lots of things are "just numbers" but protecting their sanctity is pretty damn important. It's not just a number; it's a number in context, and the context makes a difference.
[...] Freedom to Tinker on why everyone is so upset [...]
One bit of IP which the big media often expose are magicians tricks, and they actually can destroy any marketability for an act.
Last week, a group in Japan started a lawsuit:
http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3809254
This might be a silly question, but if the entertainment divisions expose secrets often and sometimes claim journalistic protection, how can they then block the exposure of secrets on any basis? I think it is called "unclean hands" in the legal system.
Maybe we can get the number on one of the news channel walks.
No, this key really is just a number, it is not the numerical representation of a copyrighted work. It's like the combination to my luggage only much much longer, and applying it is not nearly as simple. If somebody posted on the internet that the combination to Mo's luggage was 1-2-3-4 it would take some stretching but I might be able to come up with a lawsuit. On the other hand, if I bought some luggage, but had to call the retailer every time I needed it unlocked I'd be grateful to know the combo. The retailer won't like it--too bad, I own it, I can break it. The key is not a copyrighted work, its the DMCA prohibition on breaking encryption (prohibition on actually owning what you buy) that makes the key illegal (maybe-as the key alone doesn't break encryption).
Look, they're not claiming they have a Copyright on the number. They're claiming the number is an anticircumvention method which violates the DMCA.
If the number were simply copyrighted, people are allowed to distribute it under Fair Use. You can review a movie and show a clip from that movie without permission. Actually requiring permission means no studio will let you review their movie unless you give them a good review.
The DMCA, on the other hand, has no Fair Use clause. It has no limit to the monopoly the rights owner can enforce on the public.
They're not claiming the number is protected by Copyright. They're claiming its protected by the DMCA, which is much, much worse.
Bounty Hunters: metaphors for Fair IP laws
Another bit of embarrassment must be that a single point of failure existed (and may exist) in the AACS system. They can change it but it will be interesting if the future disks simply have a different key, or N different keys, or a key per disk. Even having strong crypto won't fix bad implementation or a weak link in the engineering.
The DMCA doesn't (or shouldn't) cover sillyness. I think it was Lexmark who said cloning their protection chip on their inkjet cartridges was a violation.
Maybe DVD-copy as a whole is a circumvention device, but a single integer? A T-shirt is a circumvention device. I know the law is an ass, but there is a lower bound on asininity.
Well, I'm from England where the DMCA doesn't apply, so I can say the number all I want..!
All together now: "09 F9....."
...Just kidding. Wouldn't want to get you in trouble just for pressing the keys on my keyboard in a certain order.
I agree that the "numbers can't be private" argument doesn't make much sense. There are all kinds of numbers that most of us expect should be kept private, and where we feel we should heve reoourse against people who disseminate them (even if they aren't the first ones to reveal them).
And I'm not talking about long numbers either. Credit card numbers, bank account routing numbers, social security numbers, and PINs or numerically-encoded passwords are all numbers that are in most cases smaller than the AACS key. (For example, credit card numbers require no more than 54 bits, whereas the now-widely-distributed AACS key is 128 bits.)
I think the difference in this case, though, is a different sentiment on whether *this* number *should* be private. Most people have the sense that people have an inherent right to privacy, and that they should be able to control the dissemination of their private information, particularly if that information's only purpose is to let the recipient appropriate their rights or property. There's no point in knowing someone's credit card number, for example, unless you're going to charge something to it, and the cardholder is supposed to be the only one able to authorize a charge. So you're not allowed to just spread the number around.
I think the studios see the AACS key in the same way: there's no point in knowing the number unless you're going to misappropriate their "property". But much of the public doen's see it that way; even if they're in general agreement with the principles of copyright, and the right of producers to control the *dissemination* of their works, they don't see why producers should get to control the private or otherwise appropriately limited *use* of works that consumers buy. Indeed, legal doctrines like fair use and first sale reflect this understanding. To the extent that DRM and the DMCA impose such excessive control, consumers of this sort object. And if the producers aren't entitled to that level of control, then they aren't entitled to keep private the number that imposes that control, is how I think the argument implicity goes.
So, it's not a question over whether numbers should be kept from the public as much as a question of whether *this* kind of number should be kept from the public.
[...] Edit: A better explanation of why I posted this than I could ever hope to write. [...]
You realize that the numbers aren't copyrighted right? Nobody is claiming ownership over them. The take down is for actively disseminating a known circumvention to a copyright encryption scheme (DRM). That's what the DMCA is. It has absolutely nothing to do with copyrights. It makes cracking encryption illegal basically.
In EE Times, Lorin Wirbel rightly said:
"Keepers of both industry and government secrets forget that the onus is on developers of a method for keeping information secret to protect the family jewels. Forcing journalists or coders to ignore a leaky sieve is venturing into constitutionally murky waters. "
See http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199203540
Maybe the aacsla realised that there would be all of this furore, and planned it that way - the objecive being to take the focus onto the publication of a key, and away from the fact that their system is a leaky seive.
Ed,
What is the law on someone publishing the combination to the door on your business or home? (Example assumes you have one)
They are not entering your business or home, but they are releasing the number needed to enter.
Quoted from LeDopore:
"which is why I say it’s the act of pointing to a number (by saying “this number can be used as an HD DVD crackâ€, or “that number might sound good as an .mp3″, etc.) that causes the infringement."
I agree completely. The issue here for the AACS LA shouldn't be trying to stop random Diggers who have no idea how to use the number, they should be trying to stop people posting circumvention instructions. I mean, it's a two-part deal, the number and how to use it. They should be going after groups that are posting both parts, not groups hosting the number. Failing that, they should be going after the instructions, not the number.
As an aside, because I'm honestly confused: Isn't Doom9 US-hosted? How the heck are they still up?
Unlike your private property, these keys are supposedly designed to control access to public property.
Whilst publishers may have willingly supported copyright to enforce their agreement not to print each others' books, individual members of the public have never made any such agreement.
Lock up your secrets - they're yours.
What you publish is not secret - it's ours.
Attempts to lock up public intellectual property will not be tolerated by the public.
No, a song is NOT simply a very long number. Most of you are forgetting a very simple distinction in copyright law: The difference between a work and the medium it is present in. Copyright protects works, no matter what medium they're in, digital, analogue, or otherwise.
Essentially, copyright restricts the spread of certain meanings, no matter how those meanings are represented. That means a copyright holder can claim violation if a particular number is spread if that number is being interpreted (i.e. given meaning) in such a way that it violates their copyright. Disseminating the same number interpreted in a different way is not copyright violation.
But, as others have pointed out, the key isn't subject to copyright anyway, so the point is moot.
But I don't think that negates Ed's point. I don't think anyone is quite clear what the legal basis behind AACS-LA's actions is, but it's clear that AACS-LA is acting as though they had ownership of 09.... i.e. it is behaving as though it has special rights to restricting the use of the number. And people are upset because there is no basis for this behaviour. They clearly don't gain these rights through copyright; the number is not subject to copyright, as outlined above.
The most likely explanation is that they think they have these rights based on the anti-circumvention clauses of the DMCA. Or, maybe, they just want people to think that because they know they can achieve a lot simply by acting as though they do.
It seems pretty clear to me that the number itself doesn't (or shouldn't) run afoul of the DMCA. The number by itself is not a circumvention device. The number is perfectly legitimate — AACS itself uses it to decrypt the content it protects. Were the number itself illegal, so would AACS be.
The more difficult question is how the key is used. When used in an AACS-compliant device, use and knowledge of the key is perfectly legitimate. When used in a piece of "circumvention software", it is illegitimate, at least in the eyes of the DMCA. As far as I know, the only way the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate software is whether or not it has been licensed by AACS-LA, which means that, unfortunately, the decision about whether or not a piece of software that uses the key is legal (legitimate) falls to AACS-LA, not the courts as it should. This is why AACS-LA feels entitled to tell people they can or can't spread the key — after all, they already have the ability to determine whether or not a piece of software that uses the key to decrypt AACS is legal.
Unfortunately for AACS-LA, and the reason why everyone is so upset, the DMCA grants them the (dubious) ability to declare software illegal, not the decryption keys themselves. Without software that makes use of it, the 09... key is not a circumvention device. It is a key without a lock — useless on its own. It is a number, which is open to any number of interpretations.
Now, there's good reason for AACS-LA to want to restrict the use of 09..., since knowledge of the number makes it possible (with certain other knowledge) to build a circumvention tool. But they go too far in expecting the DMCA to protect it as a secret. The DMCA outlaws circumvention devices — it doesn't outlaw the existence of the raw materials — the 09... key — to create such devices. But AACS-LA is acting as though that were the case.
Numbers Aren\'t Just Numbers...
I\'m no fan of DRM, and I think the AACS LA\'s actions are pointless and stupid. But Doctorow and Felten are being disingenuous — they\'re simply too smart not to see the problem with this argument....
"The issue here for the AACS LA shouldn’t be trying to stop random Diggers who have no idea how to use the number, they should be trying to stop people posting circumvention instructions. I mean, it’s a two-part deal, the number and how to use it. They should be going after groups that are posting both parts, not groups hosting the number. Failing that, they should be going after the instructions, not the number."
The problem with this idea is that the best place to find out how to use this number is on the AACS LA website. They have published a lengthy and very specific set of instructions for using their keys to decrypt HD and BD discs. The theory is that security by obscurity doesn't work, so they make public the methods they use and rely totally on the secrecy of their keys.
The DMCA is a joke, and the RIAA/MPAA "plan" for keeping all of this secret and out of the hands of mere mortals is doomed to failure. It would be extremely funny of they weren't pissing away millions (possibly billions) of dollars on this utterly hopeless quest. I don't expect they'll come to their senses beofre they've bankrupted the industry as a whole, however. Remember, these are the clowns that made it possible to copyright the song "Happy Birthday To You", and the same clowns who went after the Girls Scouts for *daring* to sing copyrighted songs around their campfires. (No, I'm not kidding, it's true, and you can look it up.)
Mike
http://quicktrivia.com
How long before it becomes illegal to sing in the shower?
Answer: Just as soon as they can pass the legislation.
The RIAA is quickly becoming the most hated group of bozos in the country.
The Death Psychic
http://thedeathpsychic.com
One very important is, coursework that there is no physical law prohibiting transformations and exact copies of digital things. And that is why you can circumvent DMCA easily, Assignment which tries to uphold something not backed up by physical laws, but cannot circumvent copying physical things like clothes, which _is_ related to physical limitations: thesis writing you can copy a file almost infinitely, while copying a shirt takes resources, and thus cannot be done infinitely.
Since you admit you invented the number in your post intentionally to look like the Forbidden Number, that might make it a derivative work. AACS LA might insist you transfer ownership of this post to them.
(Yes, I know copyright != access mechanism.)
[...] There are many angles to this, but one of them seems interesting to me. I think Ed Felten sums up the relevant issue rather well: The second part of the answer, and the one most often missed by non-techies, is the fact that the content in question is an integer — an ordinary number, in other words. The number is often written in geeky alphanumeric format, but it can be written equivalently in a more user-friendly form like 790,815,794,162,126,871,771,506,399,625. Giving a private party ownership of a number seems deeply wrong to people versed in mathematics and computer science. Letting a private group pick out many millions of numbers (like the AACS secret keys), and then simply declare ownership of them, seems even worse. [...]
Devonavar says: "The DMCA outlaws circumvention devices — it doesn’t outlaw the existence of the raw materials — the 09… key — to create such devices. But AACS-LA is acting as though that were the case."
I don't know if this has been litigated for the DMCA, but under other computer-related statutes numbers are indeed considered devices. A friend spent a year-plus in federal prison for unauthorized possession of "N or more access devices" (I think N was 20, but I could be wrong), which translated to "he knew and used a bunch of passwords the feds said he ought not to have known."
Mike, if you look it up, you'll find it was a performing rights organization -- i.e., representives of composers -- that sent a C&D letter to the Girl Scouts (ultimately withdrawn), not a record label, and certainly not a movie studio. And it was the 1831 Congress that made it possible to copyright songs. So, it was different clowns entirely.
Let me preface my statement by saying it may seem like a matter of semantics: This number ISN'T a circumvention device. The software that uses the number to decrypt a HD-DVD is the circumvention device. This number is only a key, and nothing more!
But, then again, it's only my opinion, and I may be horribly misinformed!
Martin: the program that employs the key is also a number. The distinction is meaningless, I'm afraid.
This is the root of the problem: all information can be encoded numerically (at a chosen level of precision, anyway). Therefore so long as you agree that some information deserves protected status (as Ed does by referring to songs and movies), the argument that numbers can't enjoy protected status is incoherent.
Note that I didn't say that no number could be owned.
It's true that every copyrighted song or video can be represented as a number. But the copyright owner's control over that number doesn't exist just because the copyright owner announced their ownership of the number, or because the copyright owner figured out how the number could be useful, or because the copyright owner wanted to build a business model based on restricting access to the number.
Here's what I wrote:
While it’s obvious why the creator of a movie or a song might deserve some special claim over the use of their creation, it’s hard to see why anyone should be able to pick a number at random and unilaterally declare ownership of it. There is nothing creative about this number — indeed, it was chosen by a method designed to ensure that the resulting number was in no way special. It’s just a number they picked out of a hat. And now they own it?
Remember, I'm not claiming it's a logical contradiction for the law to ever control access to digital information. I'm just trying to explain why the 09ers thought AACS LA was being unreasonable.
I think that one issue is whether the key is a component of a circumvention device. Arguably it might be - but there is a complication. The key is actually part of the genuine player, and as such has a legitimate use.
If you interpret the DMCA in such a way as a leaked key is a component of a circumvention device, then you don't have to go much further to get to a point where it is unlawful to mechanically dismantle a legitimate device, because the bits you get are aguably components of a circumvention device.
On Paul's point, I suspect that the definition of "access device" for the purposes of computer crime, is a special meaning for the purposes of that legislation, and would not automatically extend to the DMCA.
Isn't "pick a number at random and unilaterally declare ownership of it" obscuring the issue, though? They're claiming that it's being used as a circumvention device, not asserting copyright. It's just distributing the number with a particular use in mind that's being forbidden.
The analogy I would draw is if a company started selling as jewelry a key that happens to open my front door. I wouldn't have any right to try to make them stop manufacturing the trinkets. However, if they printed my address on the packaging, I would -- regardless of how many "for decorative use only!" disclaimers they also included.
01 03 05 07 09 0B 0D 0E 02 04 06 08 0A 0C 0F
This is my number
There are many like it
But this one is mine....
but I don't know if it is or not...
does someone own my number?
[...] Over at Freedom to Tinker, Ed Felton offers an explanation as to Why the 09ers Are So Upset. The 09 refers to the hex string for AACS decoding. The comments are particularly worth reading, especially concerning the DMCA and Fair Use. The term Fair Use refers to things like making backup copies for your own safety or copying the content of a purchased DVD onto an entertainment system so you can view it anywhere in your house. The DMCA forbids Fair Use and makes potentially illegal any attempt on your part to have Fair Use. Just another reason why the DMCA is such a bad law that flies in the face of centuries of legal precedents. [...]
I don't think that "everything digital is a number, and it stupid to claim ownership over a number" is obscuring things.
There are _fundamental_ differences between physical things and digital things.
One very important is, that there is no physical law prohibiting transformations and exact copies of digital things. And that is why you can circumvent DMCA easily, which tries to uphold something not backed up by physical laws, but cannot circumvent copying physical things like clothes, which _is_ related to physical limitations: you can copy a file almost infinitely, while copying a shirt takes resources, and thus cannot be done infinitely.
Now, the problem is that too many people do not want any of that.
Fair Use may be thought of as Public Property. Copyright holders get certain rights that are exclusively theirs, but Fair Use says the Public gets some access and doesn't have to pay the copyright holder or get their permission.
Fair Use is the basis for why you can quote a work in a critical review. You don't need to suck up to a copyright holder to get their permission or pay them gobs of money. You can just say "It stunk and here's an excerpt that really stunk" (roll film). And the copyright holder can't do anything because Fair Use protects you.
Fair Use is what allows you to time shift television content. Copyright holders fought vigorously agaisnt the VCR.
Also, copyright law was never intended to squash research and development, it was never intended to prohibit reverse engineering. Patent law actually requires that the patent holder describe, in complete detail, how their patented device works so that others can understand it and learn from it. Copyright law was intended to protect a particular expression but not ideas, it was intended to protect someone's specific words, but not the knowledge they contain. But now, you can't so much as crack open the cover on a DVD player without a takedown alarm going off.
The DMCA has stolen Fair Use from the Public, it has stolen all the rights that copyright was intended to give the Public. And the DMCA completely turns copyright on its head, taking what was intended to be a thing that PROMOTES SCIENCE AND THE USEFUL ARTS, and turning it into a complete blackout of information to defend someone's profit interest.
Greg: copyright has no bearing on this discussion whatsoever. The AACS LA isn't claiming copyright and nobody's assigning it to them. Fair Use rhetoric is great (I believe in it!) but it applies to copyrighted works that can then be added to or transformed through the work of others. It is completely irrelevant to this issue, I'm afraid.
I think a lot have gone wrong latly in the computer/entertainment industry and the future doesn't look so bright.
When I bought my first computer (C=128) you got manuals with blueprints, manuals with components, and some manuals for basic. The same was on my next computer, the Amiga, you got the blueprints, you could buy books with all the hardware unvield so you could tweak and test the limit of the computer.
When you buy a laptop today, you should be glad if the manufacturer know what ethernetcard is in it so you know what driver you should use.
Why all this rambling? Now with Vista and all this content protecting and later on trusted computing... All the stuff is hidden, none could make cool new stuff without signing NDA's noone can strech the limits on the same way as the earlier computers could do?
We are not going to se a break thru as the first Sample or Digitized video on the C64 (remeber Tainted Love anyone?).
I think it sucks!