As I understood it, the California guy was hosting DeCSS, having got it from the Norway. The DVD cops got him, not because he had the decryption keys, but because he or the person he got it from violated licensing agreements in the cracking process.
The CA guy, of course, was never given the license agreement, and so didn't agree to it. He just took the crack "as-is" and posted it. And as it turns out, the guy he got it from in Norway may not have violated the law to crack the encryption either because he did it under some other national law that overrides agreements to not reverse-engineer when working to achieve interoperability (and he was trying to watch DVDs on his Linux box). And nobody can say for sure if the the Norwegian guy every actually agreed to the "no reverse-engineering" license argeement before cracking the key. He may have just nabbed it off the a DVD (which every CSS DVD contains), or whatever. Bottom line: the California guy didn't make (or violate) any agreement to get the decryption key, and there wasn't enough proof to prove that he got from anybody else who did. So I _think_ that this means he can do with it as he pleases, and so can anybody else who gets it from him. But as you say, Frans, it's not the Supreme Court, and you can be sure this is not over. Details: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/H021153.PDF Miark ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frans Ketelaars" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [newbie] DVD player? > On Mon, 26 Nov 2001 10:46:31 -0700 > "Miark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Try going to http://www.videolan.org The DVD player works well, > > > but the DeCSS isn't legal to use or download, thanks to the > > > Digital Millenium Copyright Act. > > > > I dunno. I got the impression that this most recent DSS case > > in California effectively eliminated all legal obstacles for > > Linux apps to decode DVDs. Did I misunderstand? Or does it only > > apply for the U.S.? > > > > Miark > > Well, AFAIK the California court (and _not_ the US supreme court :) ) > just said that _linking_ to a site where you can download > DeCSS isn't illegal. > > AFAIK it's perfectly legal where I live to play an encoded dvd if it's > my property and I use it only for myself. If I visit the USA I would't > want to await a court descision though ... > > -Frans > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? > Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com >
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