7 ms·

Let's add the US Congress and the EU to the long list of parties to blame for the DRM situation. "Reverse engineering" software for the purposes of "circumventi

Let's add the US Congress and the EU to the long list of parties to blame for the DRM situation. "Reverse engineering" software for the purposes of "circumventing" copyright is illegal. "Circumventing" is much more broadly defined than it should be. It's not just illegal to redistribute copyrighted material. That's the point of copyright and has been the case for a long time. It's also illegal to watch/consume content yourself in any way that the copyright-holder didn't explicitly enable, even if you have a general right to watch/consume that content. You're not allowed to create a browser that can watch DRM-protected Netflix content. And if someone does create such a browser, it's illegal for you to use it, even if you pay for a Netflix subscription. That's pretty new (circa 1996 or so). In 2002 I went to see Lawrence Lessig argue the Supreme Court challenge of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which introduced these anti-circumvention concepts. Here are my notes: https://allafrica.com/staff/kwindla/eldred.txt https://allafrica.com/staff/kwindla/eldred.txt

krzyk 8y ago
The above is most probably for US based clients. E.g. in Poland it is perfectly legal to watch copyrighted material as long as you don't redistribute it. It is also legal to do a reverse engineering of software to allow it to run on your system, software, hardware (so I think a browser also applies). (I'm not a lawyer, just reading some of the more technical law articles)
- the8472 8y ago
  Poland is an EU member, so your government must have some implementation of the EU Copyright directive, which includes somewhat similar anti-circumvention clauses as the DMCA[0]. There are lots of differences in the details, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement that it's completely legal without actually checking the corresponding laws. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive#Technological_protection_measures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive#Technologi...
  - janoc 8y ago
    You need to realize that the EU "directives" are not actually the law (aka the thing that will get you prosecuted). The directives are "transposed" into national law, country by country - and each country can (and does) add a local "flavor" to it. So if the Poles have watered down the anti-circumvention clause (it is very vague in the directive, giving a ton of maneuvering space to the national parliaments), the situation he is describing is very possible. On the opposite side of the spectrum is traditionally France, with its (fortunately incredibly ineffective) three strike system. Very different approaches to things even though both countries are implementing the same copyright directive. The other type of texts coming from Brussels are "regulations" - those go into effect immediately, without having to be rewritten into national laws. GDPR is an example of such regulation.
    - the8472 8y ago
      I am aware, that's why I wrote "some implementation of", which needs to be checked. I am skeptical about the blanket statement made, it's usually more nuanced.
    - M2Ys4U 8y ago
      You're absolutely correct. However,in the event that directives are not transposed (or not transposed correctly) courts can find that the directive is (vertically) directly effective.
  - jp555 8y ago
    I read during earlier attempts to pass the Copyright directive that it is not implementable in Poland because it would be unconstitutional. I understood that was why Poland was voting against it, but that was in the summer, and I’m not sure if the version that passed is different.
- lucb1e 8y ago
  > in Poland it is perfectly legal to watch copyrighted material as long as you don't redistribute it. Be careful with that one. The Netherlands had that too until some European court decided that our laws were foolish and went "that's all wrong, it's obviously illegal" after which there was case law about it being illegal and now it's illegal. The ministry immediately went "oh, well, we s'ppose it's illegal then from roundabout last week!" In case you were wondering who's behind this expensive lawsuit that lasted from 2008 to 2014: we had "home copy tax" (thuiskopieheffing), so you pay a few bucks extra for storage devices (hard drives, usb sticks, smartphones) and that was redistributed to rights holders as compensation for "home copies" (copies for personal use in your household, backups, that sort of thing). Shops did not like that they had to pay extra taxes that they did not have to pay in other countries, so they went to court and got us where we are now. Dutch news about it: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95332/nederland-mag-illegaal-downloaden-niet-toestaan.html https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95332/nederland-mag-illegaal-dow... > Nederland stelt dat het downloaden van dergelijk materiaal hetzelfde is als het kopiëren van een cd of dvd, maar daar gaat het Europese Hof niet in mee. Volgens het Hof kan een wet die 'geen enkel onderscheid maakt tussen kopieën uit geoorloofde bronnen en kopieën uit vervalste bronnen' niet worden gedoogd, omdat dergelijke wetgeving auteursrechtinbreuk kan bevorderen. Translated: ~ The Netherlands claims that downloading of such material is the same as copying a cd or dvd, but the EU court does not agree. According to the EU court, a law that makes 'no distinction can be made between copied from allowed sources and from forged sources' can be allowed, because such laws promote copyright infringement. Dutch news about the government's response: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95335/kabinet-nederland-heeft-per-direct-downloadverbod.html https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95335/kabinet-nederland-heeft-pe... > Het is in Nederland per direct verboden om auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal te downloaden uit illegale bron, bijvoorbeeld via torrentsites en nieuwsgroepen. Dat stelt het kabinet in een reactie op een uitspraak van het EU-hof. Translated ~ It is in the Netherlands henceforth prohibited to download copyrighted material from an illegal source, for example through torrent sites and newsgroups. This is the ministry's response to the ruling of the EU court. So we didn't need any law change, parliamentary debate, nothing. It was in effect right away.
  - Faark 8y ago
    > so you pay a few bucks extra for storage devices (hard drives, usb sticks, smartphones) and that was redistributed to rights holders as compensation for "home copies" (copies for personal use in your household, backups, that sort of thing) We have kind of the same in Germany, and our overview on Wikipedia[1] looks even more complicated and expensive than yours[1]. You're still not allowed to circumvent effective copyright protections to make your private copy. But I'd be surprised if e.g. music only available with DRM would be excluded from earning a share of that fee. Interestingly, before the recent EU copyright reform, this fee benefited only authors directly, instead of the rights holder. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuiskopieheffing https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuiskopieheffing
- Mindwipe 8y ago
  > (I'm not a lawyer, just reading some of the more technical law articles) I'd advise not giving out bad advice then stating absolutes about the legal situation that are wrong.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
  or Cambodia, which has some interesting laws on copyright that effectively mean foreign copyrights are not enforceable there.
- kruczek 8y ago
  I also read many articles claiming that it is legal to watch copyrighted material, as long as it is not redistributed. However I'm not sure that's actually true. As per https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law Article 23, paragraph 1: > It shall be permitted to use free of charge the work, which has been already disseminated for purposes of private use without the permission of the author. Article 6, point 3: > the disseminated work shall mean a work which, with a permission of its author, has been made available to the public by any means whatsoever So, it is legal to access the work without permission, if author gave prior permission to make it available to the public. However I'm not sure if selling a book in a store or showing a movie in a cinema would automatically mean that such work can be downloaded freely from the Internet - technically the work is available to the public, but I'm sure the author did not give permission for the work to be available on the Internet.
freedomben 8y ago
Completely agree. Those government believe that protecting intellectual property is necessary to further human and societal progress. I won't take a position on whether I agree with that or not. However, based on that premise they've instituted rules to "protect" intellectual property, but unfortunately they're so weighted toward the "owner" of the IP that they do (IMHO serious) harm to regular users and consumers. It seems to me that regardless of which political side you fall under, we should agree that governments exist to protect the rights and interests of everyone, not just a select few. Something is really wrong here, and getting mad at Google or Widevine or some other company is a red herring. The real problem is what we've allowed our government(s) to do. We need to fight back there. Once the government isn't propping up the companies anymore, their abuse will disappear.
- r3bl 8y ago
  > ...but unfortunately they're so weighted toward the "owner" of the IP that they do (IMHO serious) harm to regular users and consumers. To the established owners of IP. If you're not an established creator, you're going to be on the side that gets hurt by the IP. Some IP claims are gonna hit you sooner or later, and even if they're complete bullshit, you won't be able to do anything about them. Established owners can generate enough of a fuss that they could cause an outrage big enough for some actual human to look into your issues, but if you're not big enough for that... tough luck. Try again from scratch once Google cuts you out. This happens regularly across their products, be it Google Play, YouTube, or Chrome's extensions store.
  - dTal 8y ago
    s/established/rich
  - thatoneuser 8y ago
    Absolutely. I have work floating around out there and I know it's being used without permission. Not that I'd sue someone if I could, but I can't while corporations can. And while for me I could maybe make a living off my work if it were being paid for rather than stolen, for the corporation it's just more profit. Systems fucked. The little guy should have the advantage, not the already rich one.
djsumdog 8y ago
It's a dangerous precedent. Think about adblock. You're just choosing to render the data websites give to you differently. What if you design a web browser that just ignores most blobs of CSS/Javascript and renders content in a very different way. Are you now breaking copyright? Because you're rendering the data differently than the W3C standard or blocking certain elements? I realize this is specifically about DRM content, but I feel like it won't be a stretch to try to apply these laws to common content. Lets all start running Gopher servers again... Fuck the modern web.
- masukomi 8y ago
  > What if you design a web browser that just ignores most blobs of CSS/Javascript and renders content in a very different way. that describes every command line / terminal web browser.
  - yayana 8y ago
    Ignoring what you don't understand is arguably valid, dark mode would be illegal..
- tux1968 8y ago
  Pretty soon web traffic will be decrypted and rendered via site specific web assembly blobs that will do everything in their power to defeat custom rendering. The modern web has just begun, and the powers that be are still grappling with its control. So we're still living in a comparative wild-west, but you can see the writing on the wall in every direction you look online right now.
  - samstave 8y ago
    We ahould be doing exactly this in opposite: Anti ad exit node proxies. Basically an ecryoted proxy connection to a powerful ad stripping instance that will randomize and pipe all that shit to dev null, and reply to trackers with addesses of their competing ad systems. So that every ad for “microsoft” appears as though its being used by apple users...
deogeo 8y ago
It's thanks to the obscene profits of the entertainment industry that they're able to lobby to rob us of our rights. Try not to help them by paying for entertainment.
chupasaurus 8y ago
Fun fact: due to the situation of CS in late USSR, Russia still has a law preserving the right to reverse engineer any software over any agreement or license.
realusername 8y ago
> Let's add the US Congress and the EU to the long list of parties to blame for the DRM situation. "Reverse engineering" software for the purposes of "circumventing" copyright is illegal. That does depend on the countries, at least on my case in France there's an accessibility exception which makes it okay in his case to break the DRM legally because he does not have any other choice.

krzyk 8y ago

The above is most probably for US based clients. E.g. in Poland it is perfectly legal to watch copyrighted material as long as you don't redistribute it. It is also legal to do a reverse engineering of software to allow it to run on your system, software, hardware (so I think a browser also applies). (I'm not a lawyer, just reading some of the more technical law articles)

the8472 8y ago
Poland is an EU member, so your government must have some implementation of the EU Copyright directive, which includes somewhat similar anti-circumvention clauses as the DMCA[0]. There are lots of differences in the details, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement that it's completely legal without actually checking the corresponding laws. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive#Technological_protection_measures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive#Technologi...
- janoc 8y ago
  You need to realize that the EU "directives" are not actually the law (aka the thing that will get you prosecuted). The directives are "transposed" into national law, country by country - and each country can (and does) add a local "flavor" to it. So if the Poles have watered down the anti-circumvention clause (it is very vague in the directive, giving a ton of maneuvering space to the national parliaments), the situation he is describing is very possible. On the opposite side of the spectrum is traditionally France, with its (fortunately incredibly ineffective) three strike system. Very different approaches to things even though both countries are implementing the same copyright directive. The other type of texts coming from Brussels are "regulations" - those go into effect immediately, without having to be rewritten into national laws. GDPR is an example of such regulation.
  - the8472 8y ago
    I am aware, that's why I wrote "some implementation of", which needs to be checked. I am skeptical about the blanket statement made, it's usually more nuanced.
  - M2Ys4U 8y ago
    You're absolutely correct. However,in the event that directives are not transposed (or not transposed correctly) courts can find that the directive is (vertically) directly effective.
- jp555 8y ago
  I read during earlier attempts to pass the Copyright directive that it is not implementable in Poland because it would be unconstitutional. I understood that was why Poland was voting against it, but that was in the summer, and I’m not sure if the version that passed is different.
lucb1e 8y ago
> in Poland it is perfectly legal to watch copyrighted material as long as you don't redistribute it. Be careful with that one. The Netherlands had that too until some European court decided that our laws were foolish and went "that's all wrong, it's obviously illegal" after which there was case law about it being illegal and now it's illegal. The ministry immediately went "oh, well, we s'ppose it's illegal then from roundabout last week!" In case you were wondering who's behind this expensive lawsuit that lasted from 2008 to 2014: we had "home copy tax" (thuiskopieheffing), so you pay a few bucks extra for storage devices (hard drives, usb sticks, smartphones) and that was redistributed to rights holders as compensation for "home copies" (copies for personal use in your household, backups, that sort of thing). Shops did not like that they had to pay extra taxes that they did not have to pay in other countries, so they went to court and got us where we are now. Dutch news about it: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95332/nederland-mag-illegaal-downloaden-niet-toestaan.html https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95332/nederland-mag-illegaal-dow... > Nederland stelt dat het downloaden van dergelijk materiaal hetzelfde is als het kopiëren van een cd of dvd, maar daar gaat het Europese Hof niet in mee. Volgens het Hof kan een wet die 'geen enkel onderscheid maakt tussen kopieën uit geoorloofde bronnen en kopieën uit vervalste bronnen' niet worden gedoogd, omdat dergelijke wetgeving auteursrechtinbreuk kan bevorderen. Translated: ~ The Netherlands claims that downloading of such material is the same as copying a cd or dvd, but the EU court does not agree. According to the EU court, a law that makes 'no distinction can be made between copied from allowed sources and from forged sources' can be allowed, because such laws promote copyright infringement. Dutch news about the government's response: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95335/kabinet-nederland-heeft-per-direct-downloadverbod.html https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95335/kabinet-nederland-heeft-pe... > Het is in Nederland per direct verboden om auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal te downloaden uit illegale bron, bijvoorbeeld via torrentsites en nieuwsgroepen. Dat stelt het kabinet in een reactie op een uitspraak van het EU-hof. Translated ~ It is in the Netherlands henceforth prohibited to download copyrighted material from an illegal source, for example through torrent sites and newsgroups. This is the ministry's response to the ruling of the EU court. So we didn't need any law change, parliamentary debate, nothing. It was in effect right away.
- Faark 8y ago
  > so you pay a few bucks extra for storage devices (hard drives, usb sticks, smartphones) and that was redistributed to rights holders as compensation for "home copies" (copies for personal use in your household, backups, that sort of thing) We have kind of the same in Germany, and our overview on Wikipedia[1] looks even more complicated and expensive than yours[1]. You're still not allowed to circumvent effective copyright protections to make your private copy. But I'd be surprised if e.g. music only available with DRM would be excluded from earning a share of that fee. Interestingly, before the recent EU copyright reform, this fee benefited only authors directly, instead of the rights holder. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuiskopieheffing https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuiskopieheffing
Mindwipe 8y ago
> (I'm not a lawyer, just reading some of the more technical law articles) I'd advise not giving out bad advice then stating absolutes about the legal situation that are wrong.
marcus_holmes 8y ago
or Cambodia, which has some interesting laws on copyright that effectively mean foreign copyrights are not enforceable there.
kruczek 8y ago
I also read many articles claiming that it is legal to watch copyrighted material, as long as it is not redistributed. However I'm not sure that's actually true. As per https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law Article 23, paragraph 1: > It shall be permitted to use free of charge the work, which has been already disseminated for purposes of private use without the permission of the author. Article 6, point 3: > the disseminated work shall mean a work which, with a permission of its author, has been made available to the public by any means whatsoever So, it is legal to access the work without permission, if author gave prior permission to make it available to the public. However I'm not sure if selling a book in a store or showing a movie in a cinema would automatically mean that such work can be downloaded freely from the Internet - technically the work is available to the public, but I'm sure the author did not give permission for the work to be available on the Internet.

freedomben 8y ago

Completely agree. Those government believe that protecting intellectual property is necessary to further human and societal progress. I won't take a position on whether I agree with that or not. However, based on that premise they've instituted rules to "protect" intellectual property, but unfortunately they're so weighted toward the "owner" of the IP that they do (IMHO serious) harm to regular users and consumers. It seems to me that regardless of which political side you fall under, we should agree that governments exist to protect the rights and interests of everyone, not just a select few. Something is really wrong here, and getting mad at Google or Widevine or some other company is a red herring. The real problem is what we've allowed our government(s) to do. We need to fight back there. Once the government isn't propping up the companies anymore, their abuse will disappear.

r3bl 8y ago
> ...but unfortunately they're so weighted toward the "owner" of the IP that they do (IMHO serious) harm to regular users and consumers. To the established owners of IP. If you're not an established creator, you're going to be on the side that gets hurt by the IP. Some IP claims are gonna hit you sooner or later, and even if they're complete bullshit, you won't be able to do anything about them. Established owners can generate enough of a fuss that they could cause an outrage big enough for some actual human to look into your issues, but if you're not big enough for that... tough luck. Try again from scratch once Google cuts you out. This happens regularly across their products, be it Google Play, YouTube, or Chrome's extensions store.
- dTal 8y ago
  s/established/rich
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  Absolutely. I have work floating around out there and I know it's being used without permission. Not that I'd sue someone if I could, but I can't while corporations can. And while for me I could maybe make a living off my work if it were being paid for rather than stolen, for the corporation it's just more profit. Systems fucked. The little guy should have the advantage, not the already rich one.

djsumdog 8y ago

It's a dangerous precedent. Think about adblock. You're just choosing to render the data websites give to you differently. What if you design a web browser that just ignores most blobs of CSS/Javascript and renders content in a very different way. Are you now breaking copyright? Because you're rendering the data differently than the W3C standard or blocking certain elements? I realize this is specifically about DRM content, but I feel like it won't be a stretch to try to apply these laws to common content. Lets all start running Gopher servers again... Fuck the modern web.

masukomi 8y ago
> What if you design a web browser that just ignores most blobs of CSS/Javascript and renders content in a very different way. that describes every command line / terminal web browser.
- yayana 8y ago
  Ignoring what you don't understand is arguably valid, dark mode would be illegal..
tux1968 8y ago
Pretty soon web traffic will be decrypted and rendered via site specific web assembly blobs that will do everything in their power to defeat custom rendering. The modern web has just begun, and the powers that be are still grappling with its control. So we're still living in a comparative wild-west, but you can see the writing on the wall in every direction you look online right now.
- samstave 8y ago
  We ahould be doing exactly this in opposite: Anti ad exit node proxies. Basically an ecryoted proxy connection to a powerful ad stripping instance that will randomize and pipe all that shit to dev null, and reply to trackers with addesses of their competing ad systems. So that every ad for “microsoft” appears as though its being used by apple users...

deogeo 8y ago

It's thanks to the obscene profits of the entertainment industry that they're able to lobby to rob us of our rights. Try not to help them by paying for entertainment.

chupasaurus 8y ago

Fun fact: due to the situation of CS in late USSR, Russia still has a law preserving the right to reverse engineer any software over any agreement or license.

realusername 8y ago

> Let's add the US Congress and the EU to the long list of parties to blame for the DRM situation. "Reverse engineering" software for the purposes of "circumventing" copyright is illegal. That does depend on the countries, at least on my case in France there's an accessibility exception which makes it okay in his case to break the DRM legally because he does not have any other choice.