The Battle over DeCSS: DVD Copyright Encryption

by Robin Liss
Published on Jul 29, 2001 12:00 AM



You may have heard a lot about DeCSS in the news lately. DeCSS is a small program that is designed to decode the content encryption of a DVD. CSS stands for Content Scrambling System. The program allows a user to take any DVD that is encoded with CSS, the industry standard, decode it and copy it to their hard drive. Supporters argue that the software is designed not for illegal purposes but for home users to make back up copies of their movies, a perfectly legal practice. The recording industry, and the Motion Picture Association of America argue however that the software is a copyright circumvention device, and is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. A suit was filed against Eric Corley of the hacker magazine 2600, claiming that they illegally linked to and provided users with copies of DECSS.

A few people are credited with the creation of DeCSS, Jon Johanson, a group called MoRE (Masters of Reverse Engineering) and an anonymous German hacker. The program first appeared on the web sometime in the fall of 1999. Eric Corley posted the code in an article for his publication 2600 on playing DVD’s on his Linux computer. In August, in a 93 page ruling Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered a permanent injunction against Caplan from linking to web sites that distribute DeCSS or trafficking the code in anyway.

In their appeal to New York’s 2nd U.S. Circuit of Appeals, 2600 argued on May 2nd 2001 that it was their first amendment right to publish links to the DeCSS web sites. The publication argued that fair use doctrines allow persons to make copies of copyrighted material and use DeCSS for personal noncommercial use.

The final outcome of the case is very important for DVD owners. If the ruling is overturned, people will be able to make copies of their DVD’s and effectively edit and manipulate the video. Current software will allow people to make copies of their DVD’s but the video remains encrypted so it can not be altered. With out the ability to alter the video, people will not be able to “shrink the size” or reformat their video for copying to a CD or Hard Drive. The ability to reformat video is important because DVD’s can require up to 9 GB of space on a hard drive. However, the software might also open up more pirating of DVD’s, possibly hurting DVD sales. It’s an interesting case to pay attention to.

Resources:
http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/
http://www.cnn.com
http://www.2600.com
http://www.mpaa.org