[mythtv-users] OT: CableCard, MythTV, and the Future. Is there a Future?

Brad Templeton brad+myth at templetons.com
Sun Jan 23 13:39:07 EST 2005


On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 12:26:43PM -0500, Gabe Rubin wrote:
> > Ordinary reverse engineering is not illegal (as in gatos or NTFS.)
> > It's only breaking content protection that they made illegal with the DMCA.
> > (The reverse eng is technically not illegal, it's doing something with it,
> > sigh.)
> > 
> Just to clarify, the DMCA specifically allows circumventing access
> controls for the purpose of reverse engineering to create
> interoperable systems (there are a few more exceptions, see 17 U.S.C.
> 1201 for the complete list).  However, it remains a good question as
> to what would be allowed.  In some of the deCSS cases, this defense
> was used, but the court was more persuaded by the plaintiff's argument
> that the circumvention was for piracy and not interoperability. 

It was worse than that.  The judge actually wrote that 2600 magazine
was not able to use the reverse engineering exception because it was
not the reverse engineer.   That exception belonged (in theory) to
DVD-Jon and his associates, not the people who published the code.

Thus, you can write the code, but nobody else can put it on their
web site.   (Debatable if you can put it on your web site even.)
Which, if you could really use it, might work for a vendor of proprietary
tools (like printers) but screws open source software.

However, in truth, this judge was poorly disposed to 2600 and Eric.
The DVDCCA of course wants to pick defendants they think the judges will
be poorly disposed to, and they get to pick.  The way that judge wrote,
I doubt he would have allowed even a hardware vendor trying to sell
a reverse engineered DVD player for compatibility.


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