[Fwd: Uncle Sandy wants you...]

From: Sandy Harris <sandy _-at-_ storm.ca>
To: canada-dmca-opponents (at) flora.org
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:05:57 -0400

A rather old message, originally sent to a dozen or so friends, that seemed
worth posting here.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Uncle Sandy wants you...
> Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 14:07:25 -0500
> From: Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>
> To: ...
> 
> .. for a flanking attack on the DVD CCA. Objective is to hit them with
> something painful and unexpected from Canada while they're busy suing
> people in the US and molesting Norwegian teenagers.

They had 16-year-old Jon Johannsen, who originally posted DeCSS, arrested.
 
> Norwegian embassy Ottawa's email address is: nor-emb-ott@intranet.ca
> They haven't answered my mail on this.

I suggested they not only release the kid, but give him a scholarship to
study with Scandanavia's best-known cryptographer, Lars Knudsen.
 
> What I want is volunteers to file complaints with Industry Canada's
> Competition Bureau that these guys are making unfair use of market
> power to:
> 
>         restrict competing products (Linux software)
>         screw consumers (region-coded disks and players)
> 
> My reading of gov't web site:
> 
> Industry:  http://www.ic.gc.ca/
> Competion: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ct01635e.html
> Pamphlets: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ct01265e.html
> 
> is that both complaints have some chance of success. If we can
> convince the Bureau of that, then they haul the companies involved
> before a Competition Tribunal.

Australia already has. See a previous post of mine for the reference.
 
> I want the first thing these bozos hear of this to be a summons, so
> I'm carefully avoiding posting anything about this possible attack
> to mailing lists etc. until I see how far I get talking to the
> dep't. Please do the same unless/until you have compelling reasons
> to go public.
> 
> By all means shit on DVD CCA as often and as publicly as you care
> to, just don't reveal this attack. Also, please forward this if it
> seems appropriate, just not to public mailing lists they might
> monitor.
> 
> I filed a complaint on Industry Canada's online form:
> 
> http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ct01260e.html
> 
> a few weeks back. Response so far has been a phone call asking for
> more details and email saying "I'm off for a couple of weeks; talk
> to you when I get back". That conversation should happen this week.

Over a year later, I've had some encouragng noises but no actual
results.

> Meanwhile, I've talked to a friend who knows the dep't. I'm told that
> if they get three complaints on the same subject, they are legally
> required to investigate. This note is intended to generate the other
> two complaints.
> 
> Other attacks:
> 
> Other attacks may also be possible. The CRTC regulates media, the
> region-coded players come through Customs, Heritage Canada regulates
> cultural things (with some specific protections that override NAFTA).
> I've done nothing along these lines; if you can, go for it!
> 
> Heritage and Indistry run a tax/levy on writable CDs intended to
> collect money which gets passed to the artists. One fairly interesting
> approach would be for us to argue that DVD CCA with their silly license
> fees are stealing $ that should go there and we're perfectly willing
> to pay the (so far non-existent) levy on blank DVDs. This neatly
> reverses their "evil hackers stealing movies" crap, making them the
> "evil monopoly robbing poor artists".
> 
> One piece of email I saw suggested e.g. Samsung might be charged
> with false advertising for claiming their player "plays all DVDs"
> when it uses region codes and US/Canada model won't play disks
> from other regions.
> 
> Another said DVD CCA is registered as non-profit which means their
> financial statements must be public. If EFF lawyers (robin@eff.org)
> don't already have that info, finding it for them would likely be
> quite helpful.
> 
> Some folks are handing out flyers at theaters, trying to organise
> a boycott of MPAA members films:
> 
> http://www.2600.org/news/2000/0130.html

Now:
http://www.2600.org/news/0130-flyer/flyer.html
 
> Writing a Canadian version of this (minus refences to First Amendment
> and preferably bilingual) might be useful.
> 
> Background:
> 
> As you are probably aware, the DVD Content Control Association have
> filed a lawsuit in California against about 500 people, mostly "John
> Doe"s. They want a court order to prevent web sites these folks run
> from either posting or linking to the program DeCSS which breaks
> their Content Scrambling System, an encryption method for DVD disks.
> 
> They allege this is theft of trade secrets and a violation of license
> agreements, even though the work was apparently done in Norway where
> the law expilictly permits reverse engineering to develop compatible
> software, and expilictly states that neither licenses nor contracts
> can over-ride that.
> 
> Meanwhile, a movie industry association is suing a large number of
> people (the same 500?) claiming DeCSS violates the US Digital
> Millenium Copyright Act since it is a tool for unauthorised copying
> of copyright material.
> 
> The attackers' web sites:
> 
> http://www.mpaa.org/
> http://www.dvdcca.org   worked last week, currently no DNS!
> http://www.lmicp.com/   a related company
> http://www.lmicp.com/dvdcca/index.html
> 
> More accurate info:
> 
> http://opendvd.org
> http://www.linuxdvd.org/
> 
> http://www.eff.org/   providing legal help in US cases
> http://www.2600.com   "hacker" mag, one of the defendants
> 
> Now their Content Scrambling System does not actually protect
> anything because it is incompetently designed. 40-bit keys and
> they didn't even get 40 bits of strength from those! See the
> court submission from Dave Wagner at Berkeley, in which he says
> breaking CSS is about the right level for him to assign as
> homework in his undergrad crypto course next term.
> 
> Even if it worked, it would not protect movies from copying.
> A bit-for-bit copy of a DVD disk can be made without decrypting
> and it will play on any player the original does. Also, since
> the signal goes out to TV, it can be tapped and recorded.
> 
> What it was designed to do, however, was to prevent two things,
> neither of which has anything to do with protecting movies:
> 
>         licensing revenue for DVD CAA
>         region coding for movie marketing
> 
> Region codes are described at:
> 
> http://www.opendvd.org/regioncode.html
> 
> and are illegal in some countries, e.g. New Zealand.

I got that info from opendvd.org, but tried to confirm with
the NZ embassy and failed.

> What I'd
> like to see is having them made illegal in Canada.
> 
> What they are is coding on disks and players splitting the world
> into regions (five currently defined, 8 possible) so that. e.g.
> a disk sold in North America won't play on a European player.
> 
> Britain's largest supermarket chain recently came out strongly
> against these:
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/indy-buy/Shopping/tesco180200.shtml

That URL is obsolete. See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/000221-000018.html
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