CDR: MP3.com yanks DeCSS sourcecode sung

[Private User]

  MP3.com yanks song with illegal
  DVD-hacking code 
  By Corey Grice
  Staff Writer, CNET News.com
  September 13, 2000, 7:25 p.m. PT 

  Joseph Weckers song about a binary computer code wasnt exactly a
  chart-topper, but he doesnt think MP3.com should have banned it. 

  The popular music Web site today removed the song, in which Wecker,
  sounding more than a little like a 1960s sit-in protester, sings a version of
  the banned computer code known as DeCSS. 

                  In an email to Wecker, MP3.com cited the nature of
                  the music lyrics for the songs eradication. "Your
                  song has either a song title or lyrics that are
                  offensive or otherwise inappropriate," the company
                  wrote. 

                  "Since there is a precedent holding (2600.com)
                  culpable for posting the code, we felt it was in our
                  best interest to remove it," an MP3.com spokesman
                  said in an interview. 

                  The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
                  has filed lawsuits seeking to outlaw the code, calling
                  it a hack of its DVD encryption scheme aimed at
                  making and distributing illegal copies of digital films.
                  A federal judge in New York last month agreed,
                  banning hacker publication 2600.com from
                  publishing or linking to the code online. 

  The song, called DeCSS.MP3, offers an English-language rendition of
  computer code that, depending on whom you ask, is either a harmless
  exercise in experimental software engineering or a missile aimed at the
  heart of Hollywood. Either way, DeCSS has become a flash point in the
  head-on collision between digital technologies and copyright owners, much
  as Napster has for the music industry. 

  The programmers who wrote the code insist DeCSS was designed to play
  legally purchased movie DVDs on computers running the Linux operating
  system--a format not supported by the movie industry. They say the code is
  a form of speech and is protected by the First Amendment--a claim many
  DeCSS supporters have rushed to validate by churning out artistic and
  other nonfunctioning works based on the DeCSS source code. 

  Wecker said he sang the DeCSS code
  as a way to attract attention to the
  issue. 

  "Its gone one step too far," Wecker
  said. "Its illegal to photocopy a
  copyrighted poem. But now its like it
  has become illegal to tell someone
  how the Xerox works." 

  Other protesters have published
  portions of DeCSS on T-shirts and
  have recorded dramatic readings of
  the code. Some have used the code to
  create images in graphics files.
  Pro-DeCSS supporters say these
  demonstrations dont contain the full
  source code necessary to decode a
  DVD, a popular digital home movie
  format. 

  "I find it very disturbing that I live in a country where singing source code
  may be technically illegal--kind of chilling," Wecker said. "My song is just
  like the T-shirts. The T-shirts dont even have enough code to decode a
  DVD." 

  MP3.com, meanwhile, is wrestling with its own copyright troubles. A federal
  judge last week found that the company willfully infringed the copyrights of
  Universal Music Group in creating an online database of some 80,000 CDs
  for use with its My.MP3.com music locker service. The company could be
  on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.