[NTLUG:Discuss] Let Freedom Ring! DeCSS code is speech! ...well, almost.

[Mike Hart]

Forget DeCSS, the whole patent/copyright
infrastructure in the U.S. is based on very weak
wording in the constitution.  I really think that if
you could get a challenge to underlying copyrights and
patents in general into an unbiased court, they
wouldn't stand up at all, as written.

We should be asking whether the idea of DVD encryption
is legal.  That in itself seems to be more of a
monopolistic practice than anything Microsoft has
tried. The amount of energy spent trying to keep DVD
knowledge in the dark is enough to convict the RIAA of
exploiting their monopoly. This DeCSS stuff is just
legitimizing the whole idea of 'required' encryption. 


Due to patent rights, Cipro costs 8.00 in the United
States, but about 50 cents almost anywhere else in the
world, including the country in which it is made. 
What does that say about the 'value' of our patent
laws?  The constitution was written to protect
inventors and free thinkers from being taken advantage
of by the dirty english machine.  200 years later, the
dirty machine is taking advantage of not only the free
thinkers, but the whole population as well.


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