[dvd-discuss] Comments from the Judge in the 321 studios case

["Richard Hartman" <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t280-s2134792,00.html

 

Doesn't sound good. 

 

[blockquote]

For example, when Durie opened her statements by saying the studios are mistakenly trying to argue that 321 is offering a tool for burglars, the judge fired back, "Under the statute, all it has to be is a circumvention device."

[/blockquote]

 

The thing is, she's right.  It's the law itself that needs to be invalidated.

 

There is one promising bit at the end of the article:

 

[blockquote]

Illston asked Zacharia to explain the conundrum of locking up copyrighted works behind encryption and then making the breaking of that encryption illegal, even after the copyrights on those works expire. The judge wondered if it would effectively extend copyrights to keep such works out of the public domain.

Zacharia said it would not, because the copyright had expired.

"But it's encrypted. If it doesn't stop being encrypted, it's still encrypted," Illston said, adding that such protected works still couldn't be legally copied.

[/blockquote]

 

--
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!