DVD-Copy.com is a repository for all things DVD decryption. This is the home of, Universal vs. Reimerdes, the first test of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998.
The movie studios sought an injunction to remove all links to the programming code called DeCSS (decrypt Content Scrambling System).
This very website was forced under a court order from federal judge Kaplan of New York City, to remove the DeCSS source code and any links to other mirror sites! < gasp! >
Also for the first time, we saw a need for decentralized P2P networks to distribute untouchable information. This is not communist China, but how could an uncompiled program cause so much death and destruction? Can we trust our government to not to be pressured by the big corporations?
The case was later appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals and turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court. DVD-Copy.com site remains unable to lawfully be involved in the publication and URL-linking-to of DeCSS.
Open Source Code was ruled as not protected by free speech. Free speech is guarenteed to all Americans.
Related Articles
- Wikipedia's article on DMCA
- U.S. Copyright Office summary of the DMCA
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) page on the DMCA
- Wikipedia's article on DeCSS
- Wikipedia's article on Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes
- DVD-copy.com site archive from 2000
- Developers should look at the libdvdcss library
Sites of Interest
- Brazil Torrents
- The Pirate Bay
- Cryptome is a brilliant project with a long history
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
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