Signs of Hope (Spring, 2001) ---------------------------- As our appeal of last year's DeCSS case draws closer (at press time it was set to be heard by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in early May), we realize how much we've accomplished since this whole ordeal started and how much other people with half a clue have gotten done too. That's not to say that a lot of bad stuff hasn't happened; we know too well about all of that. New bad laws, new threats, more stifling of technology and speech throughout the world. But despite all that, we're going into this with a real feeling of optimism. As time passes, more people seem to realize the true motives of groups like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. They're not about protecting the rights of struggling artists, bolstering creativity, or giving consumers a fair deal. They're about maximizing profit plain and simple. And as things continue to go their way thanks to laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, people slowly start waking up to the reality that maybe their best interests have been completely ignored. Perhaps the most dramatic display of this overdue realization came in remarks made by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) in early March before a Consumer Electronics Association Conference where he seemed to actually realize the true dangers of the DMCA: "The time, in my opinion, has come for the Congress to reaffirm the Fair Use Doctrine and to bolster specific fair use rights, which are now at risk. In 1998, responding to the concerns of copyright owners, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The announced purpose was to protect from piracy copyrighted material in an environment which poses special concerns for copyright owners. They made the point that with digital technology, a copy of a copy of a copy has the same clarity and perfection as the original of the work. They also made the point that in the networked environment, with the single click of a mouse, thousands of those perfect copies can be sent to people throughout the nation and the world. The DMCA is the result of the effort by Congress to respond to those realities. There are some today who believe that the legislation went too far. For example, it creates, in Section 1201(a), a new crime of circumventing a technological protection measure that guards access to a copyrighted work. Under Section 1201, the purpose of the circumvention is immaterial. It is a crime to circumvent the password or other gateway, even for the purpose of exercising fair use rights. There is no requirement that the circumvention be for the purpose of infringing the copyrights. Any act of circumvention, without the consent of the copyright owner, is made criminal under Section 1201. Some now foresee a time when virtually all new material will be sent to libraries on CD ROMs, with the material encrypted or guarded by passwords. In exchange for a fee for each viewing, the password may then be used. And so it is predicted that under Section 1201, what is available today on the library shelves for free will be available on a pay per use basis only. The student who wants even the most basic access to material to write his term paper will have to pay for each item that he uses. Several of us made an effort in 1998 to limit the new crime under Section 1201 to circumvention for the purpose of infringement. But in the momentum to enact the measure, essentially unamended, we were not able to have that change adopted. With the growing realization on the part of the education community and supporters of libraries of the threat to fair use rights which Section 1201 poses, perhaps the time will soon come for a Congressional reexamination of this provision. Perhaps the only conduct that should be declared criminal is circumvention for the purpose of infringement. Perhaps a more limited amendment could be crafted to ensure the continued exercise of fair use rights of libraries and in scholastic settings, notwithstanding the provisions of Section 1201. And I think there are other challenges. I am concerned by the apparent attempt of some in the content community to seek to protect their copyright interests in material contained in television programs by insisting that the TV signal quality be degraded, or by insisting on the use of set-top box technology which prohibits all copying. The reasonable expectations of television viewers to be able to make copies of programs for time shifting and other historically accepted purposes must be honored and must be fulfilled." We suspect that there are many others in Congress who feel the same unease but are hesitant to speak out against such powerful lobbies as the MPAA and the RIAA. We must encourage them to listen to the people who elected them, not the special interest groups who use intimidation and money to get what they want. In another very public display in early March, cartoonist Aaron McGruder devoted his popular comic strip Boondocks to the DeCSS controversy. For three days, characters struggled to understand the baffling ruling of Judge Kaplan this past August, which forced 2600 to keep the source code off of our site and even banned our linking to other sites that contained this material. "Why is it perfectly legal to post a diagram of how to build a bomb on the Net, but you can't post a code that descrambles DVDs?" a character asks a teacher. The rest of the strip is blacked out with the words "CENSORED. We just don't like where he's going with this." On a different day, the entire strip was replaced with the words: "CENSORED. This comic contains numerous references to the DeCSS code used to bypass the Content Scrambling System of DVDs, which, by order of Judge Lewis Kaplan, is illegal to reproduce in any way. We apologize for the inconvenience, but speech that damages the profits of our corporate friends is NOT protected by the First Amendment. Thank you." This biting political commentary accomplished in two sentences what virtually every major editorial page has so far failed to do. The sobering consequences of the ruling against us were laid out concisely for all to see. Note that the author understood that the code was not designed for copying, a fact that virtually every news report on the subject got wrong. What this illustrates is that we have allies in places we never even thought of. This one comic strip reached millions of people who now have some understanding of what this case has been, and continues to be, about. There are probably a good many more ways of reaching the public that have yet to be utilized. We need to come up with more ideas and those people who can help get the word out need to come forward. And of course, technological rebellion continues. We've seen people come up with shorter and more creative methods of bypassing CSS, everything from a DeCSS haiku to a 434 byte C program to a seven line Perl script. There's even a prime number that is identical to the gzip data (in decimal) of the original C source code minus tables. T-shirts, bumper stickers, even tattoos with such "illegal" code are popping up everywhere. And it all serves to illustrate the absurdity of the whole thing. It's imperative that we keep our sense of humor throughout, no matter how it all turns out. There are many levels on which we could ultimately lose; the court case is only one of them. The spirit of the hacker community is what is vital to this and all future fights. It's an inspiration to many more outside the scene who can only dream of taking on the fights we do. Destiny has put us in this position at this time in history and we have to continue to stand up for those things we believe in: free speech, free communication, free access to knowledge, and the ability to control and shape technology to suit our individual needs. We're very lucky to be where we are, despite the risks. And we're fortunate beyond words to have such an amazing support network that is still growing and developing. Because no matter how the DeCSS appeal turns out, you can bet there will be more fights in our future. If they open half as many eyes as this case has, they will be worth the trouble.