[NTLUG:Discuss] DeCSS -- losing the limelight

[Steve Baker]

Brian Koontz wrote:
> 
> All that discussion we had last week about DeCSS, the MPAA, etc. has
> already been technologically eclipsed.  There are now bigger fish to
> fry, something that will probably push DeCSS back into the dusty realm
> of old news:
> 
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/402970.asp?cp1=1
> 
> So now, the big question is:  Do we embrace DivX with the same fervor as
> DeCSS, all in the name of software freedom?

Urgh - talk about bad timing.  Whoever wrote this wasn't been
as helpful as they may have thought.

Before DivX:

  DeCSS has nothing to do with piracy because all it does is
  decompress DVD's onto your hard drive - and the resulting
  file it way too large to use for anything other than personal
  use.

After DivX:

  DeCSS is the first step in the process to decompress a DVD
  and then (using DivX) to recompress it small enough to write
  an entire movie to a CD-R drive.  This makes it easy to pirate
  DVD's - and worse - to make infinite numbers of the pirated
  disks for less than $1 apiece.

I have to say that I'm skeptical that you could compress an
entire movie to ~700Mb without significant loss of quality...
but if this is so then DeCSS's legal position gets much
harder to argue.

If DivX had existed BEFORE DeCSS, you'd almost certainly have
to argue that DeCSS's entire reason for existing was to make
it possible to convert from DVD to DivX format.

(Which idiot decided to call this program DivX?  Since that's
the name of an existing optical disk video format, this is
going to cause a LOT of confusion... DivX != DIVX).

Well, I guess this doesn't change my personal view. DeCSS
merely allows me to play back DVD disks on my Linux machine
which doesn't seem illegal in itself.  DivX is just a very
good video compression algorithm that I could use for storing
all my home movies onto a CD - or for other entirely legal
reasons.  Neither program seems to be illegal or immoral or
anything else - but there is no doubt it's going to screw
things up mightily.

These tools are just like (say) a Hammer.  If you carry a
hammer outside to mend your garden fence, there is no
problem.  However if you wave one around in the middle of
a major bar fight, you are likely to be found guilty of
carrying a deadly weapon.

If you wrapped up DeCSS and DivX into a single bundle
along with cdrecord - then that would without doubt
be an illegal tool for the use of pirates.

Ugh.

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1 at airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker at hti.com      (work)