A Summer of Trials (Autumn, 2000)
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One thing the summer of 2000 will not be remembered for is dullness. We've
never had so many different things come together at more or less the same time.
Yet all of these different things were somehow related and extremely relevant
to where we are headed.

Many see it as a bad thing that the DeCSS trial dominated our time as much as
it did. Unfortunately, there was never a choice. Like a dangerous disease, it
had to be fought with every ounce of our strength. Thanks to the support of the
EFF and a terrific legal defense team, we had the best chance possible of
getting our side out.

It seemed obvious from the beginning that the court was sympathetic to the case
of the MPAA and this was certainly borne out in the decision. But the reaction
of the many thousands who have been following this case one way or another
around the globe only confirmed that we succeeded in making the points we
needed to make. Anyone with a degree of knowledge in either technical issues or
the value of freedom of speech seems to get it right away. Why then did our
court system fail to?

We can analyze it forever. But it basically comes down to perception. The judge
bought into the notion that hackers are evil and only interested in causing
problems, pirating films, and bringing down corporate America. Ironically,
decisions such as this do more to foster such hostility than anything else and
we ve seen a very definite change in tone within several communities hackers,
open source, independent artists, activists it s rapidly turning into an us
versus them scenario. And it's all but assured that someone is going to fall
into the mass graves that corporate America is digging.

For those without access to the Net and who may have missed it in the media,
the MPAA was granted a permanent injunction against our posting the DeCSS code
that allows DVDs to be played on alternative platforms such as Linux. The main
thrust of the MPAA's argument was that this would also allow people to copy
unencrypted DVD files and then transfer them over the Net. It was demonstrated
time and again that such activity would take massive time and bandwidth and
that it would ultimately prove pointless since encrypted files could still be
copied and read through any existing DVD player and since the cost of DVDs was
low enough to make piracy a money losing venture. But this case was never about
piracy. It all centered around the MPAA wanting control over how people play
digital media. They want to be able to dictate how, when, and where you can
access content. We're already seeing the results of this in the form of region
coding (preventing the viewing of DVDs from one geographical region to
another), the elimination of  fair use,  which has always allowed for consumers
to make personal copies of the material they ve purchased, and the ability to
force consumers to sit through commercials and FBI warnings without the ability
to skip through them. And don't for a moment think it will stop there. You will
soon see the same kind of controls introduced on audio recordings. And, with
the advent of HDTV, don t be surprised when you have to pay a fee to record
your favorite program and another fee for every time you want to view it. All
of this is not only possible under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the
1998 legislation that made this lawsuit and the many that will follow
possible), but increasingly likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. If the
rest of the DMCA goes into effect as scheduled in late October, it will be
illegal to even figure out on your own ways of circumventing these many
controls and restrictions.

It's not too late to make the DMCA into a political issue. There are no voting
records on its passage other than Clinton s signing it into law. Both the House
and the Senate used voice votes to assure its passage. That means it's as good
as unanimous. Every single elected official needs to be targeted aggressively
so that they realize what a bad mistake the DMCA is. It's extremely likely many
of them didn't get the full story when they were considering it. It's up to us
to see that they understand it now. And if they refuse to, to replace them with
someone who does.

The MPAA has gotten an immense amount of bad publicity because of this case.
People who weren't even aware of who the MPAA was now think of them in a
negative way. Their victory will be more costly than our loss. And ultimately
they cannot hope to hold consumers hostage for very much longer. We find that
once consumers become aware of what this is really about, they understand the
importance of the case very quickly. That s why getting the word out to as many
people as possible leafleting, demonstrations, web pages, public forums is so
vital at this stage.

What we've seen over the last few months as a direct result of this is the
tremendous growth of activism in our community. The Free Kevin movement started
us in this direction and the DeCSS case gave us a real push. This in turn has
gotten many more people involved and helped to solidify ties between
communities that have always been fighting for the same things in different
ways. Since we cannot count on the media (most of them are owned by companies
who are part of the lawsuit against us) we have to do it ourselves. As Jello
Biafra put it during his keynote address at H2K, we must "become the media."

All of us have that ability and the Net is what makes it possible. But the Net
is also in danger of becoming co-opted by the same entities who are trying to
shut us down. This can happen in several ways. Our best and brightest can be
lured away into corporate settings where the values they once held dear are
cashed in for stock options. More regulations by nervous governments can reduce
the free potential of the global Net to mere folklore. By portraying those in
our community as criminals by focusing on absurdities like mail viruses and
"potential" crimes, public opinion can be easily swayed to turn us into the
enemy, which makes control all the more necessary in the eyes of the masses.

One thing that seemed to come out of this summer's H2K conference was the
sentiment that the time to sit back and take it is over. If we want to preserve
our existing freedoms and restore those that we've already lost, the only way
to accomplish this is to get involved. While it s easy to just sit back and let
life happen, joining forces and working towards a goal is what makes for
significant change. And it also happens to feel great.

That's precisely why this year's conference had more of an activist slant to
it. While the world of hackers is ultimately about playing with technology,
figuring things out, and sharing information, powerful entities have decided
that these things are not to be tolerated. We find our very existence and that
of free thinkers of all sorts threatened in ways even we find ourselves
surprised by. While it's relatively simple to close one's eyes and play ball,
the results would be nothing short of catastrophic. We have to take a stand and
we have to be willing to pay the price.

We've seen this sentiment echoed several times this year. Three issues ago we
told the story of Seattle and how for the first time independent media people
used the Net in a major way to report a story that the mainstream had ignored.
As we suspected, it was the beginning of a trend. This summer, history repeated
itself in Philadelphia and Los Angeles at the two major political conventions.
Crowds were attacked in the streets by police firing rubber bullets (a practice
introduced in Seattle last November), peaceful protests were made illegal, and
the mainstream media dutifully went along for the ride. Suspected "leaders,"
including a 2600 staff person, were hunted down and arrested, in some cases
just for walking down a street with a cell phone (later defined by authorities
as an implement of crime). Bail was set at up to a million dollars and people
were thrown into prisons with utterly horrendous and barbaric conditions.

If you watched the news and read the papers, you probably heard the exact same
words repeated over and over that would lead you to believe that these actions
were somehow justified. For those who were there and for those who participated
over the Net, a very different story than what was being reported on the
mainstream media soon revealed itself. Thanks to a new and long overdue brand
of media not controlled by corporate interests and a belligerent government,
firsthand accounts got out to the world in the form of video, audio, and the
written word. Most of this was limited to the Internet but at least one brand
new satellite channel - Free Speech TV - managed to bring this material into
millions of living rooms nationwide. And, just like you would expect to see in
those "uncivilized" foreign nations, the authorities came down hard on these
independent media types, harassing them at every opportunity, denying them
access, and even going so far as to disrupt their legitimate work. One
unbelievable incident took place at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles as
the people at Free Speech TV were preparing a live broadcast. Police came in
and shut down the facility because of a "bomb threat." But no bomb squad ever
showed up and the relaxed attitude of the police made it abundantly clear that
there was no threat. The police let the facility reopen ten minutes after the
window for the satellite transmission had closed. This was far from an isolated
event. In Philadelphia, police repeatedly "inspected" the headquarters of the
Independent Media Center during the Republican Convention looking for the most
minor of violations in order to shut it down. In addition, helmeted riot cops
would surround the building for no particular reason except to intimidate the
inhabitants. These exact tactics had been used on Radio B92 in Yugoslavia when
they broadcast non-government reports, ironically also using the Internet as
their main channel to the world.

On the mainstream networks, none of this was reported. All you saw there were
the same boring non-issues. This is what journalism in the United States has
been reduced to.

The inspiration of these events along with the tremendous sharing of
information and resources that took place at H2K, not to mention all of the
crap that's happened to us, has made it clear that we have to work together if
we want to have any chance at all of making a difference. That's why we ve
decided to join with the Independent Media Center to form a base in New York
where those who have been shut out and are interested in making a difference
can come together, using the Net and some imagination to reach the public. You
can get more information at www.indymedia.org. No matter where you are in the
world, you can participate by opening people's eyes to the issues that have
been ignored. Never stop educating yourself on the threats to freedom that keep
hitting us day after day. It's about reading, exploring, and communicating.

So now the question remains: what's next for us? It's hard to say. A lot has
happened in the past few months. Our documentary Freedom Downtime has finally
been finished and is now slowly making the hacker convention/film festival
circuit. The film, which focuses on the Free Kevin movement and the hacker
culture, will be made available on VHS and, yes, DVD in the near future. Our
next conference will take place in 2002, a year earlier than normal owing to
the great success of H2K and the overall need for this kind of thing. Next year
we encourage people to attend HAL 2001 in the Netherlands, which we believe
will be similar in style to a HOPE conference. More details will be published
in upcoming issues.

As for how the result of the trial will affect things, we intend to keep doing
what we do for as long as that remains possible. We have complied with the
injunctions against us but we doubt that will be enough to satisfy the MPAA or
future cases that involve the DMCA. At press time, we have removed all links to
sites that contain the DeCSS code as per the judge's incredibly misguided
ruling. However, we have not removed a listing of those sites. Listing is not
the same as linking and if we re ordered to remove a list, then that's one less
thing we're allowed to do. We want the restrictions against us to be crystal
clear and not open to any misinterpretation.

We don't yet know what the financial ramifications for all of this will be. We
encourage people to make sizable donations to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, who have made this fight possible and have expressed the intention
to take the appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. Please help make that
happen and visit www.eff.org.

We're not the only victims in this fight - even people who make t-shirts with
source code printed on them are being sued now - but if we ultimately lose or if
the DMCA is allowed to stand as is, you can bet on an uncountable number of
legal battles on the horizon. Support and awareness, for this and all related
causes, are the only hope we have for averting this catastrophe.