DeCSS Central
This site contains links and local copies of all relevant information about
DVD, CSS, DeCSS, LiVid, the DVD CCA and MPAA and the various lawsuits
surrounding DeCSS.
You will quickly notice that there are almost no graphics and no fancy layout
here - this is all about content, not marketing.
A longer introduction and a disclaimer can be found
here.
News
The US Anti-Trust Division has publish a report including a list of members
in the DVD CCA cartel. (thanks to cryptome for the plain-text excerpt)
If you are interested in the broader issues of copyright, it's abuse and
extension - read these speeches by Thomas Babington Macaulay made 150 years ago before the House of
Commons (i.e. in the UK) when a copyright amendment law was being discussed.
A smoking gun - read this WIPO document
(.pdf format) for some interesting information straight from the horse's
mouth - a Time Warner analyst and a DVD CCA lawyer. It clearly refutes most
of the claims made by judge Kaplan and the MPAA and tells a quite different
story.
Cryptome has created an HTML version
of the document.
If you are interested in not supporting the CSS crazyness, but still
want to watch DVDs, maybe this list
of (CSS) Free DVDs will be useful to you.
eurorights.org has posted the final
version of the
European Community Directive
for what they call "harmonization of copyright". It is frightenly close to
the DMCA in spirit.
CSS and DeCSS
CSS stands for Content Scrambling System, a (very weak) encryption
used for movie DVDs.
DeCSS is a small piece of software that breaks the CSS encryption and allows
the reading of encrypted DVDs.
For better understanding, this chapter also contains a lot of background
information about how CSS works and how it was defeated.
more about DeCSS
LiVid
LiVid is an open-source project to bring video and DVD playback to Linux.
For various reasons, it required the breaking of the CSS "encryption", and
DeCSS was in fact partly developed as part of the LiVid project.
more about LiVid
DVD CCA and their lawsuit(s)
The DVD CCA is a trade organization with the sole purpose of licensing CSS.
On December 27th, 1999 DVD CCA sued over 500 people in at least 11 nations
for making DeCSS available for download, or for linking to a site that does
so, claiming "misappropriation of trade secrets".
On December 29th, 1999 their request for a temporary restraint order (TRO)
was turned down. On January 18th, 2000, a preliminary injunction was granted
until the case is resolved.
MPAA has joined DVD CCA on January 17th, 2000 in a New York lawsuit that might
well put the Digital Millenium Act to the test.
more about DVD CCA and their lawsuit(s)
DeArt Contest
Illegal Art? You can get your dose right at the DeArt Contest.
What Might Be Going On
Possible reasons and explanations for the DVD CCA and MPAA over-reactions.
Notice: The content of this page is speculative. I don't claim that it's
true, I just claim that it's possible.
paranoid speculations.
Press Sightings
Recently, quite a lot has been written about DeCSS and related topics. With
over 150 articles, this is the - to my knowledge - most complete collection
of links to news articles about DeCSS and the lawsuits.
read the press sightings list
Personal Comments
The final page contains my personal comments about various items. In the above
parts I try to be impartial, stating only facts and items I believe I can
prove if necessary. This chapter, however, is purely opinion.
see my personal comments
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