Finnish court rules CSS DVD protection "ineffective"

A Finnish court in Helsinki has made a ruling that confirms what we've all known for a long time now; that CSS is completely ineffective as a copyright protection method for DVDs. Legally this adds an air of sanity to the previous European Ruling that banned the "the circumvention of 'effective technological measures.'" This early court decision (it could be / probably will be appealed) places CSS outside of this definition, removing the illegal aspect of circumventing CSS in the EU. If the decision of the entry-level court stands, then there are implications for other copyright protection methods, which will no longer be considered effective protection methods if software which undermines it becomes widespread -- certainly the case with CSS, and potentially the case with HD-DVD and Blu-ray. As the case is currently developing, we'd suggest you keep the champagne energy drinks on ice for now: not that the legal status of backing up your DVDs was an effective deterrent in the first place.

[Jypson @ May 26th 2007 1:03PM]

Finnish court rules sky is blue and grass is green! Gasp!

[Austin @ May 26th 2007 1:33PM]

Now if they'll just bring this State side so I can legally rip my movies without the DRM gestapo banging at both my door and my mother's!

[Ayle @ May 26th 2007 2:10PM]

Will never happen....

[John Doe @ May 26th 2007 2:26PM]

As if it matters. The nanosecond someone sues you for this, as long as you aren't sharing the content the Judge will in order:

Blink a lot, point and laugh at the MPAA, and throw it out of court. At this point in time everyone and their mother rips DVD's. If the MPAA is going to sue someone they should file a nation wide lawsuit and sue everyone in North America. US Citizens vs. The MPAA on the next Judge Judy.

[Karim @ May 26th 2007 2:41PM]

So it's illegal in the EU to break "effective" protection...

...but then if you DO break it, it's no longer "effective," so breaking it is no longer illegal?

LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

I guess lawyers gots to eat too.

[gopi @ May 26th 2007 7:08PM]

You need to remember which "you" you're referring to.

The law essentially says, "it's illegal to put a lot of effort into breaking copy protection schemes."

For example, it is the position of the federal attorney I heard speak that breaking CD protection using a market is _not_ illegal because it is trivial to use that technique.

In the case of DeCSS, you can get it anywhere. An un-skilled person can trivially get it. It is an objective fact that there are no significant technical barriers to duplicating DVDs.

The people who got us into our current state may have liability, but those of us who were un-involved are in the clear.

An analogy is in trade secret law. Trade secrecy protection is essentially an obligation upon an employee to not reveal specific information which is otherwise un-protected. Say, a nifty technique for assembling a car transmission which is _not_ patented. If I work on that, and have signed an agreement, I can be prevented from revealing this to the public. If I go to Ford and tell them about it, they can't use it.

However, if I go to the press, and the press writes hundreds of articles about it, it's not a secret anymore. I, personally, can get in all sorts of trouble, but that doesn't change the fact that it's no longer a secret. Anybody can use it as long as they were not involved in leaking it.

[Karim @ May 26th 2007 11:01PM]

The trade secret analogy *is* compelling and the ruling seems now seems less absurd to me than it did on first reading.

The argument then devolves to a discussion on the definition of "effective," and a reasonable person *could* make the case that the existence of numerous easily-available implementations of DeCSS makes CSS "ineffective."

Still, it does stick in one's craw slightly.

It is sort of like stealing vs. looting. Stealing is wrong and punishable by law. However, if there's some kind of natural disaster, or a riot, and someone smashes a storefront window, and then 5,000 people rush in and loot the place, grabbing everything they can, well... people tend to look the other way in those situations, I guess, because the windows have been smashed in and the door has been ripped off and the police are not present, and besides who's going to arrest 5,000 looters anyway.

As you say, the inital person smashing the window or ripping the door off (DVD Jon) might be liable, but as for Random Looter number 4,096 out of 5,000... well, it is hard to think of sending that *one* looter to prison as fair treatment, even if he was technically in violation of the law.

Thanks for a thought-provoking reply!!!

[akijikan @ May 26th 2007 5:37PM]

Yeah that law wouldn't last two seconds in the US. They wouldn't dare be so vague. Does something stop being effective when it is broken? The only they that made CSS less effective was a proliferation of decoding software. So maybe the HD-DVD key spamming accomplished something after all.

[Russ @ May 26th 2007 7:44PM]

so cracking WEP must be okay in Finland also?

the great thing about this: linux distros that come with deCSS software to play DVDs have been creating criminals out of people who want to watch DVD they've purchased.

[Synergy6 @ May 26th 2007 8:02PM]

@karim, akijikan

The difference is what happens after someone is caught, accused of having cracked a DRM method:

1) In the EU, or at least Finland, they go to prison for cracking the code. That's mostly the end of the matter. Sucks for the DRM company, but maybe they'll get off their asses and actually earn their living next time around.

2) In the US, they go to to prison for cracking the code. Then, every granny, pre-puberty minor and dead cat who *may* have used the same, pathetically easy bypass method gets sued by the MPAA.

I'm not exactly EU-friendly most of the time, but I prefer their method.

[akijikan @ May 26th 2007 10:52PM]

That's not the issue. The issue is how do you determine whether or not its ineffective.

[Synergy6 @ May 27th 2007 12:46AM]

If the grannies, kids and dead people that the MPAA/RIAA have sued can crack something, it's not effective. All you can do is decide how to deal with that fact.