Congratulations to Ian Goldberg, David Wagner and other cryptographers for publishing a break of the HDCP standard for encrypting video data. This was intended to be used between HDTV decoders and displays, for example, to allow digital communication between them in encrypted form so that it could not be captured and shared. The paper by Crosby et al at http://nunce.org/hdcp/hdcp111901.htm is a thorough break of the system, which unfortunately is not fielded yet so you can't use the exploit to steal HDTV. The big question is what about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which potentially criminalizes such research? We heard a great deal this past summer about what a threat the DMCA was to legitimate cryptographic research, and about how the exemptions in the DMCA weren't worth the paper they were printed on. One cryptographer, Niels Ferguson, refused to publish his break for fear of prosecution under the DMCA, http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46091,00.html. It would be interesting to hear the perspective of any of the researchers involved as to whether they are concerned about the DMCA. Do they view themselves as creating a possible test case? Or are they simply going to ignore the DMCA and go about their lives, doing their work on the assumption that such a bad law will ultimately not hold up in court?
Yes, it would be interesting to hear from all the authors how they decided to publish the HDCP crack, first at a recent conference, then to publish on the Web -- as far as I know none besides Scott Crosby, the principal author, agreed to publish on the Web. Scott, a student at CMU, first broke HDCP program before Niels Ferguson refused to publish his cryptanalysis of HDCP due to DMCA: http://cryptome.org/hdcp-weakness.htm Scott said at the time of the initial break that he was fearful then about being punished under DMCA and even more so now. He says he now agrees with Neils to not publish additional cryptanalysis under threat of the DMCA. It is possible that the HDCP owners don't give a damn for the program was openly published and there's been no public complaint about Scott's first crack, Neils or the latest. To be sure, that lack of initiative might be due to fear of cyberterrorism initiated by Richard Clarke or it may be due to confidence that the FBI will take care of all the nation's problems in about 150 years.
What makes you, Incognito, believe the DMCA may "criminalize" the publication of a scientific paper? What makes you believe that Niels Ferguson's worry was not hyperbole, or a PR stunt designed to garner press? What makes you think that a scientific paper would generate even civil liability? The DMCA may be a terrible law, sure, but let's keep criticisms grounded in reality. The relevant section of the DMCA is only a few pages long; let's hear how this could apply to scientists. -Declan (Note Dmitry has been indicted because he and his company were selling software to circumvent copy protection.) On Sat, Nov 24, 2001 at 03:50:49AM -0600, Incognito Innominatus wrote:
Congratulations to Ian Goldberg, David Wagner and other cryptographers for publishing a break of the HDCP standard for encrypting video data. This was intended to be used between HDTV decoders and displays, for example, to allow digital communication between them in encrypted form so that it could not be captured and shared. The paper by Crosby et al at http://nunce.org/hdcp/hdcp111901.htm is a thorough break of the system, which unfortunately is not fielded yet so you can't use the exploit to steal HDTV.
The big question is what about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which potentially criminalizes such research? We heard a great deal this past summer about what a threat the DMCA was to legitimate cryptographic research, and about how the exemptions in the DMCA weren't worth the paper they were printed on. One cryptographer, Niels Ferguson, refused to publish his break for fear of prosecution under the DMCA, http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46091,00.html.
It would be interesting to hear the perspective of any of the researchers involved as to whether they are concerned about the DMCA. Do they view themselves as creating a possible test case? Or are they simply going to ignore the DMCA and go about their lives, doing their work on the assumption that such a bad law will ultimately not hold up in court?
Declan opines:
(Note Dmitry has been indicted because he and his company were selling software to circumvent copy protection.)
Had they given the software away for free, or published code for the crack, they might have actually done some damage to copyright holders. Instead, they charged enough money for it to raise the height of the bar above casual and frivolous use. Why this is viewed as an aggrevating circumstance by the DCMA, as opposed to a mitigating one, is anyones guess. Why don't people copy paperback books? Because it is cheaper to buy them. Not because the paperback book copyright police threaten you with life in prison. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
On Sunday, November 25, 2001, at 01:09 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:
Why don't people copy paperback books? Because it is cheaper to buy them. Not because the paperback book copyright police threaten you with life in prison.
Why don't people copy hardback books? Answer: they do! Go to any large copying center near a university and look for "professor packs" or "HistCon 101 Course Materials" consisting of copied material out of various textbooks, hard and soft. The deal is that the student takes the professor pack over to a copy machine and runs off a copy of each of the, for example, 400 pages. The student pays $20 or so and saves himself having to buy 10 books to read one or two chapters or sections out of each. The students are happy, the copy shop is happy, the professor is happy, and only the publishers and authors are unhappy. This was very common here in Santa Cruz, as recently as several years ago when I was doing a lot of copying of my own papers. There were signs up about not violating copyright law, but these professor packs were in clear violation. (Yeah, someone may say "Maybe the professors made an arrangement with the publishers and authors." I give this a vanishingly small chance of being the case in more than 2% of all such "course materials" packs.) I've heard that national chains, like Kinko's, are less involved in this trade. Deeper pockets, easier to threaten. (It used to be common at, ironically, the very first Kinko's, in Isla Vista, CA. The year I arrived, ironically.) As for paperback books being cheaper to copy, I've copied several paperbound books that "cost too much." --Tim May, Occupied America "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
on Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 01:23:42PM -0800, Tim May (tcmay@got.net) wrote:
On Sunday, November 25, 2001, at 01:09 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:
Why don't people copy paperback books? Because it is cheaper to buy them.
Not because the paperback book copyright police threaten you with life in prison.
Why don't people copy hardback books?
Answer: they do! Go to any large copying center near a university and look for "professor packs" or "HistCon 101 Course Materials" consisting of copied material out of various textbooks, hard and soft. The deal is that the student takes the professor pack over to a copy machine and runs off a copy of each of the, for example, 400 pages. The student pays $20 or so and saves himself having to buy 10 books to read one or two chapters or sections out of each. The students are happy, the copy shop is happy, the professor is happy, and only the publishers and authors are unhappy.
First: this is somewhat orthogonal: - Only a portion of the book is being copied. This makes the reproduction cost significantly different from the sale cost of the authorized book. - Materials from many sources are being assimilated, raising total costs; and the holding period for the materials is generally short (the duration of a quarter or semester). Production-quality bindings and archive-quality paper aren't required. Second: where exactly is this occuring? You seem to indicate smaller shops. I worked at Kinko's during the period 1989 - 1992, largely serving UC Davis. This was during the period Kinko's was involved in a large copyright infringement suit (Basic Books v. Kinko's, ultimately lost by Kinko's to the tune of US$1.3m) over the issue of "Professor Publishing", the coursepack preparation service. As Tim indicated, this was a core of Kinko's business model from the company's founding in Santa Barbara in the early 1970s. Kinko's, at least, of major copy centers, has significantly revised its processes, both securing copyright clearance on more (most?) of the materials, and deemphasizing the role of Professor Publishing within Kinko's. At the time I left the company, there was a strong awareness for all employees about making unauthorized copies (and you'll occasionally hear stories about people who're denied service to copy materials they own), at least when this is done "behind the counter". What customers did in the self-serve area was largely unregulated.
This was very common here in Santa Cruz, as recently as several years ago when I was doing a lot of copying of my own papers.
Care to name any of the shops at which this was occuring? Kinko's, AlphaGraphics (are they still around?), and other high-profile repro shops tend to have fairly strong policies regarding unauthorized copying. The same tends to extend to copy centers run by colleges and universities. Smaller, privately held shops tend to play faster and looser.
There were signs up about not violating copyright law, but these professor packs were in clear violation.
(Yeah, someone may say "Maybe the professors made an arrangement with the publishers and authors." I give this a vanishingly small chance of being the case in more than 2% of all such "course materials" packs.)
In the case of Kinko's, the covered materials were most if not all in my
experience, with a sheet listing clearances added to packs by the time
I'd left. There's also the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC:
http://www.copyright.com/), formed in the 1970s, which has played a
significant role in recent photocopy copyright infringement claims as,
as its existence has "removed any excuse for unauthorized copying"
(Paul Goldstein, _Copyright's Highway_, Hill & Wang, 1994).
Peace. Tim May excepted.
--
Karsten M. Self
Tim May wrote:
Answer: they do! Go to any large copying center near a university and look for "professor packs" or "HistCon 101 Course Materials" consisting of copied material out of various textbooks, hard and soft. The deal is that the student takes the professor pack over to a copy machine and runs off a copy of each of the, for example, 400 pages. The student pays $20 or so and saves himself having to buy 10 books to read one or two chapters or sections out of each. The students are happy, the copy shop is happy, the professor is happy, and only the publishers and authors are unhappy.
This was very common here in Santa Cruz, as recently as several years ago when I was doing a lot of copying of my own papers.
There were signs up about not violating copyright law, but these professor packs were in clear violation.
Really? Sounds to me like they fall under "Fair Use." That provision specifically exempts copying for research or education. Marc de Piolenc
On Sunday, November 25, 2001, at 06:51 PM, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote:
Tim May wrote:
There were signs up about not violating copyright law, but these professor packs were in clear violation.
Really? Sounds to me like they fall under "Fair Use." That provision specifically exempts copying for research or education.
I strongly doubt this. "Fair use" is not about setting up alternate publishing schemes, but is about quoting relevant sections, collecting material for research purposes, etc. If it were as broad as you claim, why would _any_ school buy textbooks for its students when it could make a photocopy for a fraction of the cost? Schools could simply digitize textbooks once and then distribute them on CD-ROM. I'm not a copyright expert, but I strongly doubt what you say above. --Tim May "That government is best which governs not at all." --Henry David Thoreau
Tim May wrote:
Really? Sounds to me like they fall under "Fair Use." That provision specifically exempts copying for research or education.
I strongly doubt this. "Fair use" is not about setting up alternate publishing schemes, but is about quoting relevant sections, collecting material for research purposes, etc.
I'm not a copyright expert, but I strongly doubt what you say above.
Well, I'm not a copyright expert either, but I have read the statutes and a smattering of case law, and I have been running a photocopy service - i.e. practicing what I preach - for 25 years or so, with no trouble so far except from anal-retentive Kinko's clerks. Marc de Piolenc
On Sun, 25 Nov 2001, Tim May wrote:
Really? Sounds to me like they fall under "Fair Use." That provision specifically exempts copying for research or education.
I strongly doubt this. "Fair use" is not about setting up alternate publishing schemes, but is about quoting relevant sections, collecting material for research purposes, etc.
Aye. Quite a number of people seem to have this strange intuition that "research and education" are somehow different from "commercial" use, making them "fairer". It's naturally true that the preconditions of the fair use exception are more often fulfilled in the context of research, but that's about it. Were that not the case, people who make textbooks would not be very well off. I'd guess it's basically the same thing that makes people advocate public schooling -- not too long ago I too thought education was a "basic need" which needed to be socialized. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Tim May wrote:
On Sunday, November 25, 2001, at 06:51 PM, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote:
Tim May wrote:
There were signs up about not violating copyright law, but these professor packs were in clear violation.
Really? Sounds to me like they fall under "Fair Use." That provision specifically exempts copying for research or education.
I strongly doubt this. "Fair use" is not about setting up alternate publishing schemes, but is about quoting relevant sections, collecting material for research purposes, etc.
If it were as broad as you claim, why would _any_ school buy textbooks for its students when it could make a photocopy for a fraction of the cost? Schools could simply digitize textbooks once and then distribute them on CD-ROM.
I'm not a copyright expert, but I strongly doubt what you say above.
AFAIK the US case law is the "Texaco principle" (maybe that is what a previous poster meant...) which allows you to make copies for personal educational or research purposes, but not as part of a profession or business. IIRC scientists at Texaco made copies of a chemistry journal and the company lost a case when the publishers sued them. I think it is the case that the student is allowed, under "fair use" to make one copy of a small part of a journal for their own education and research. It is possible that the teacher is allowed to make copies & give them to the students (though not to sell them). But it is almost certainly not allowed for a company to make such a packet as part of its business. (The law seems to imply that education is not a business or profession, which I have no problem with, though I guess many cypherpunks might). As ever, AINAL & if I was I wouldn't be an American one. (Though I was working for Texaco at the time of the court case & I now work in a (British) university where we have to deal with similar copyright law as it exists here) Ken Brown
Kinko's got sued over selling the "student packets", there was a big flap over it a few years ago in academia, but as I recall the end result was that professors are more careful to have written permission from the publishers in hand, and the packets are still being sold. Most publishers are cooperating -- it's simply that the material is in the library, the portions of the books used is not large enough that students would buy them anyway -- as opposed to actual "textbooks" that they do purchase, so it seems a reasonable "fair use" compromise. In most of these cases the publishers realizer that they aren't going to sell more books by refusing, the authors realize that they'll get more exposure, more recognition, and the students don't have to spend hours in the library waiting for someone else to finish copying the materials. But as I said, most professors are being much more careful about getting permission beforehand and most copy places are being more careful about what they sell. At the biomedical library I worked at, the copiers only worked if you had a special card, and only students and faculty had the cards, since copying the medical texts and selling them to law firms and clinics was/is a lucrative business and was a principal income for the library. Don't know how the DMCA has affected them. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 10:31 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote:
But as I said, most professors are being much more careful about getting permission beforehand and most copy places are being more careful about what they sell.
If I remember the results correctly, Kinko's keeps track of what they copy and sends the publishers a certain amount. -- "Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are half-wits."--Chris Klein
At 01:36 PM 11/29/01 -0800, Petro wrote:
On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 10:31 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote:
But as I said, most professors are being much more careful about getting permission beforehand and most copy places are being more careful about what they sell.
If I remember the results correctly, Kinko's keeps track of what they copy and sends the publishers a certain amount.
If this were Germany, you'd pay a tax to publishers for every ream of blank paper you bought...
On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, David Honig wrote:
If this were Germany, you'd pay a tax to publishers for every ream of blank paper you bought...
CDR media are affected. CD writers are affected (HP has been sued). Even attempts to extend this to other storage products such as hard drives are reported. Of course, individuals can stay under the radar by ordering parts from overseas.
I can't remember what the exact deal was with Kinko (and they were the one being sued), but the net effect was that people are being a lot more careful. Here, in fact, Kinko totally moved out of the student/university area, went off to suburbia, and I see no signs anymore at their new site about student packets. Plenty of other, no-name copy shops to fill the gap. Petro wrote:
On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 10:31 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote:
But as I said, most professors are being much more careful about getting permission beforehand and most copy places are being more careful about what they sell.
If I remember the results correctly, Kinko's keeps track of what they copy and sends the publishers a certain amount.
-- "Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are half-wits."--Chris Klein
-- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Declan McCullagh wrote:
What makes you, Incognito, believe the DMCA may "criminalize" the publication of a scientific paper? What makes you believe that Niels Ferguson's worry was not hyperbole, or a PR stunt designed to garner press? What makes you think that a scientific paper would generate even civil liability?
Well, I spent quite a bit of time talking to lawyers about this very issue, and unfortunately, it does not appear to be mere hyperbole. As much as I'd prefer to believe this is nothing more than hyperbole, the legal experts told me to take this issue very seriously, and I am. As far as I can figure, it seems unlikely that publishing a scientific paper would be fall under the criminal provisions of the DMCA, so "criminalize" is probably inaccurate. However, the potential liability in a civil suit appears to be a significant concern. The key is 1201(b), providing a "technology ... or component thereof", etc., etc. Is a scientific paper that merely describes how to build a circumvention device a "technology or component thereof"? It's simply not clear. The lawyers don't seem to be able to confidently predict how such a case would turn out (and I spoke to several). In other words, there appears to be a real, but unquantifiable risk -- a risk to scientists that cannot be lightly dismissed. Given this risk, I've decided I cannot afford to continue to work in the area of copy protection as long as the uncertainty remains. And how in good conscience can I advise students working with me to work in this troubled area? I can't.
Incognito Innominatus wrote:
It would be interesting to hear the perspective of any of the researchers involved as to whether they are concerned about the DMCA. Do they view themselves as creating a possible test case? Or are they simply going to ignore the DMCA and go about their lives, doing their work on the assumption that such a bad law will ultimately not hold up in court?
I can't speak for any of the other authors, but yes, I am extremely concerned about the DMCA. In the case of HDCP, I spent more time speaking with lawyers than I spent on the cryptographic research itself. As a result of this experience, I don't plan to work in the area of copy protection again so long as this legal shadow hangs over the field. The costs are simply too high. For further information, you can read the declaration I submitted in the Felten case. It is available online at the URL below. http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/20011022_wagner_decl.pdf
participants (14)
-
David Honig -
daw＠mozart.cs.berkeley.edu -
Declan McCullagh -
Eric Cordian -
Eugene Leitl -
F. Marc de Piolenc -
Harmon Seaver -
Incognito Innominatus -
John Young -
Karsten M. Self -
Ken Brown -
Petro -
Sampo Syreeni -
Tim May