Word: decss
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...fact, there exist no licensed players for the Linux operating system, so while the three million Linux users can all play DVDs on their computer using a clever program called DeCSS (versions of which have been written that are small enough to fit neatly on the back of a business card), to do so is a violation of federal law. It’s equivalent to selling a book on the express (though not explicitly agreed upon) stipulation that a whole group of potential readers couldn’t break a seal put on chapter 10. There?...
...basement office and confiscated two computers, some data CDs, a cell phone and its charger. What had Johansen done? He'd just watched some movies. Later this year, Johansen, now 18, will stand trial for hacking. Prosecutors say that's what he did by co-authoring a program called DECSS, which decrypts DVDs so that he can watch the movies - which he bought legally - on his computer. Some may have called that money-saving ingenuity - he didn't have to buy a stand-alone DVD player - but the entertainment industry saw it as a threat to its revenue stream...
...software that converts DVD-quality movies into easily-transferrable files is also difficult to find. Under the Digital Media Copyright Act, it is illegal to distribute DeCSS, the program used to decrypt DVD movies and copy them onto disk. The MPAA has routinely threatened those who post the program on their websites or servers with legal action...
...home-video format that died an ignominious and expensive death last year. The new DivX, developed by French hackers, turns theatrical movies into relatively small computer files that can be transferred over the Internet. To do this, the movie is copied off an ordinary DVD using a program called DeCSS. (The legal status of DeCSS is a gray area, to put it mildly; one of its distributors is currently in court for violating copyright law.) In the next step the movie is squeezed down to a manageable file size. Your average movie takes up about four gigabytes in digital form...
...When congress passed the DMCA, they said, in effect, that it is unlawful to post the utility that is designed circumvent copyright protection," Ryan said. "If there had been no court decision on that, we'd have to figure out if [DeCSS] does or doesn't violate the law on our own. But there was a clear ruling from the courts that said this violates...