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AACS group will fight bloggers
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 4th May 2007
The AACS business group has said it will take action against bloggers that posted the HD DVD key.
Thousands of websites published the key, which was originally uncovered on Doom9's forum, and it led to a row on popular social bookmarking site Digg, which we reported earlier in the week.
Chairman of the AACS business group, Michael Ayers, told the BBC that most folk cooperated with AACS group to prevent the leak of the key, but went on to say that the row between Digg and its users was "an interesting new twist".
Ayers mentioned that the key has now made appearances on YouTube and it's also on T-Shirts too. "Some people clearly think it's a First Amendment issue. There is no intent from us to interfere with people's right to discuss copy protection. We respect free speech.
"They can discuss the pros and cons. We know some people are critical of the technology.
"But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention. You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then."
He later added that HD DVD copy protection was not broken and the key that was leaked has now been revoked. Before the key was revoked, it allowed users to play some protected HD DVDs with their copy protection removed on two different software players. Ayers said that the leak wouldn't affect hardware players, meaning that software players could and would be patched if they haven't already. However, he admitted that the discs affected by the leak could now be copied regardless.
This is undoubtedly the first round in the war against AACS and the group claims to be ready for the next round. How long will it be before the next round kicks off? Place your bets in the forums.
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Comments (37)Stats: 0.128 seconds
As people have said "How can you copy right a series of numbers?"
If it can be compared to a password, then the password should be changed, not beat up people who know the password.
And for the next round, the people will find a way to crack whatever they come up with and it will all start again. The quote "history repeats itself" seems to be very true with regards to DRM atleast.
Guess the AACS group won this round over here.
Atleast Hexus has not banned the key from their forum.
QFT
Banning of numbers AFAIK can't be done.
We're a pretty tight-knit community, I'd like to think...and whether we all think this is stupid or not, there are very real legal ramifications that could occur. We're not police, and this forum is an active community that we all take part in, so we're not going to go around deleting threads or banning people. We also understand that the key is not a hack, crack or warez unto itself...but please consider this a very genuine request from a fellow forumite so that there isn't a chance of losing the forum altogether over something this stupid.
There are justifications other than copyright for someone to object to information being published - for example, if I posted libellous information, I could be ordered to remove it. Similarly, if I stole some confidential information (which is analogous to what has happened here) and put it on the web, I wouldn't be surprised to get a take-down notice.
But this is the only way to play HDDVDs on linux at this point in time. It took about 2 weeks for it to be discovered, and that was by accident!
Or are you suggesting that whats in my computers memory is now something that I shouldnt be looking into ?
This is just a string of random characters, its not a block of code which does anything illegal, its not libellious or anything of the sort. And again, if it is a passcode into something confidential, change the password.
Should only the *act* be a crime, or can the very discussion of *how* to commit a crime, also be a crime?
Thats the issue in discussion here. Circumventing DRM is a "crime" under the law (at least in the US I guess). However it seems to be argued by these folks that the very discussion of how to circumvent DRM is a crime too. Some people might say "well yeah, how is telling people how to do it, different then actually doing it. It all works out the same in the end".
At first glance that may seem true, but consider this. Imagine if the same was true about *murder*. If the discussion of how to murder someone was also illegal. How many books, movies etc (Murder mysteries!) would then be illegal? By showing a fictionalized murder, you are essentially outlining a blueprint for someone else to re-produce it. Obviously this idea is pure lunacy, and yet, with DRM circumventation it's "OK".
Should the goverment be confined to limiting our *actions*, or can they also have the ability to sanction our thoughts and ideas? Thats the issue at heart in this particular case.
Aggies
Again.
But Tim, I'd prefer to see a much more enlightened attitude from you on this - the DMCA is not law here, and if it causes problems for people in backward, neo-con countries for certain information to be made public by a UK organisation serving pages from a UK server, then let's do that, and bring foreign governments' ineptitude into the spotlight. You wouldn't, I suspect, refuse to publish criticism of the Chinese government on the basis that it's disallowed in China. Would you?
Please don't make Bit-Tech into a US colony.
Phil
Edit: To clarify, I meant to imply that bit-tech might be subject to the same legal restrictions as anyone else in the US, what with having servers there.
Good grief, why?
For exactly this reason it's worth avoiding.
Pardon me for assuming you'd been bright.
Phil
Its cheaper ?
It seems the 1337 h4xzz0rz people are out there destroying all forms of copyright protection that comes their way like they have an entitlement and distribute ways to illegally obtain properties to stick it to the RIAA, MPAA, etc. In turn, these organizations just introduce newer, tougher, more intrusive forms of copyright protection. Caught in the middle are dudes like me who just want to watch a stupid movie. I understand that a lot of these crackers are trying to help get rid of the bane that is DRM, but they have to realize that the more aggressive they become, the more aggressive the organizations' DRM is going to become.
Ultimately I side against the big organizations because instead of attacking the problem they are suing 12 year old girls. They are trying to swat a fly with a rocket launcher. There's no reason multi-billion dollar organizations should be suing single moms for $5,000 because her kid downloaded a Fallout Boy song. Their entire handling of the problem has been a complete flop, and instead of trying come up with an appreciable solution they are just getting more and more arrogant and making their DRM more and more intrusive, and ultimately, that hurts the consumer.
*off-topic*
For some reason this reminds me of that guy who stole credit card information from the Cyber Cafe thing to try and stick it to Valve. He acts like some kind of robin hood and holds innocent peoples' credit card info hostage and tells Valve he's trying to help them by forcing them to update their security. As far as I'm concerned that guy belongs behind bars. I guess what I'm getting at is you can't kick a man in the balls for no reason and then say "should have been wearing a cup."
So one day they will give up - or so I hope.
It's at the same time funny and aggravating that AACS thinks the DMCA is enforceable all around the world and in every country that has a single PC with an Internet connection...
...but still, I don't think that's the crux of the matter. The key is in the wild (kudos to the Doom9 guys), AACS is already dead, people will be able to make their back-ups, watch HD movies on Linux and copy HD media until their 10 Tb HDD claim for mercy. The hackers have stuck it to the man, another battle against DRM has been won and we should all be glad for it. But posting the now infamous 09 key, knowing very well than you are protected by anonymity and that the one who is going to feel the heat are [insert yout favourite web site/forum/blog here] owners and administrators is a mistake.
If you are against DRM feel free to talk about it, write your politicians, vote with your wallet and be as vocal about it as you want. I don't think anybody is going to stop that on BT or any "techie" site. But by posting a key here you aren't encouraging any anti-DRM stance, just like those thousands of brave
armchair guerrillas that may have put the nail on digg.com's coffin while fighting "the man" from their PC's in their parent's basement. I'm glad it happened as it has made the common citizen more aware of DRM...but I don't really have digg.com in "My Favorites". Those that do, should be ready to see it sued to death really soon, and for what? For making public an hexadecimal key that is of no use to most outside the Doom9 forums? A key that, in case somebody doesn't still know, was already public in February and was easily available to those with the technical knowledge to make something useful out of it (like a future HD-DVD Shrink or BD Decrypter) which most of us aren't.
Heck, start your own blog and post the key if you feel so strongly about it, but if you do, do it somewhere where you are the one legally responsible of what's posted there. And I encourage you to read your local, enforceable intellectual property law before. Even if the DMCA is not enforceable where you live, many IP laws have lately started to make illegal the use, possession or publicity of anti-DRM systems be they cracks, keys or passwords. And make no mistake about it, it's not a matter of numbers being copyrighted as it's been said. It's a matter of those precise hexadecimal numbers, in that precise order are a mean to bypass a DRM system. You would have a hard time convincing a judge than posting them wasn't done with the intention of bypassing AACS encryption, making you liable and vulnerable to a sue.
Why not ?
It's just gonna hurt the consumer. Those of us that want to purchase our products will end up paying more for it. These guys whose life goal is to destroy these organizations for the good of the consumer are ultimately just hurting the consumer more.
The movie companies didn't want HD stuff to be used on Linux
The market will settle itself once DRM is gone from the picture.
I will buy original HD stuff, but I want to be able to play it any way I want for my personal use.
Wishful thinking and far from reality. If studios had their way, every single piece of media would be ridden with DRM. You would have to purchase different copies of the same film/music/tv series to watch it on DVD, PC, iPOD etc. If it weren't for DVDJon and DeCSS, nobody could rip their DVDs to iPods or PSPs.
That would only be the first step though. HD media would probably have an Internet connection as a prerequisite and you'll likely end up going through micro payments (or not so "micro") every time you wanted to watch your media.
Since the advent of digital content and the Internet, the studios have an ultimate goal, a pay-per-view business model for all your media. DRM isn't there to stop piracy at all (even them know that's impossible), but to lock users into buying the same media several times.
Perhaps they should stop investing money in something that is defective by design?
DRM is inherently broken. As long as your eyes can see it and your ears hear it, you can copy it. And whenever you sell somebody a digital copy, you are selling him a "master" copy that can be theoretically replicated an infinite number of times without any loss in quality. Encryption doesn't work...as it has just been showed, you can't give somebody the message, the cypher and the key and expect it to stay encrypted for any significant amount of time.
Studios could as well make a pyre with all that money and rise prices with the excuse that "it keeps the artists warm" and it wouldn't make less sense.