[dvd-discuss] CA Supreme Court hears Pavlovich Jurisdiction Challenge in DVDCCA case

[John Schulien <jms(at)uic.edu>]

Once again, the reason that the studios are fighting so hard
in this case is not to get DeCSS removed from the internet.
Obviously that is impossible -- as has been proven by the
internet community at large.

The reason that they are fighting so hard is to preserve
their monopoly over player manufacturing licensing.  The
entire purpose of encrypting DVDs, and of forming the
DVDCCA, was to place themselves in a position of
dictating, by means of licensing terms, what technical
features are allowed and disallowed in consumer DVD
players.

The entire issue boils down to the the legal status of the
CSS algorithm.   The studios are persuing this case for
one reason and one reason alone -- to establish the
legal fiction that CSS is still a trade secret, even though
there are thousands of web sites publishing the CSS
algorithm, and even though the CSS algorithm was
discovered by legitimate reverse engineering
techniques.

The studios are not stupid.  They are not delusional.
They are focused like lasers on a specific goal.

What they are fighting for is to obtain the equivalent
of eternal patent-like protection over the right to
license -- and therefore dictate conditions on --
the manufacture of DVD player hardware.

That's why this issue is not over.  It will not be over
until a judge declares that the CSS algorithm and keys
are longer a trade secret, but have entered the public
domain.   The effect of such a finding would be the
rapid displacement of consumer-feature-crippled DVD
hardware with DVD players with desirable consumer
features, such as digital firewire output and no
Macrovision circuit.