Osugi Sakae

There is a bit of an uproar over the HD-DVD people’s attempts to preserve their “intellectual property” as well as Digg.com’s reaction to said attempt.

Basically, it comes down to a string of numbers and letters that are meaningless to humans. Combined with the correct software, hardware, and an HD-DVD disc, however, these numbers give access to the content of that disc.

In other words, the numbers and letters are the key to unlock high definition DVDs. You can watch a movie without using software from someone who paid the HD-DVD association for the privilege.

And someone found this key and posted in on the Internet for all to see.

Wow. Big deal. Why should anyone other than the people at the HD-DVD association care?

In truth, it isn’t a big deal at all. CSS, the system on regular DVDs to “protect” the content was broken several years ago and look how little damage the movie industry took. That’s right, almost none.

But someone posted the key and now all heck is breaking out. Reactions are begetting reactions. “In the end” is all well and good, but at the moment blood is boiling and imaginary profits are under assault.

I am not a lawyer, so have no idea about what laws might be in play here. Is this a patent issue (doubt it), a trade secret issue (sounds reasonable to me), or a copyright issue (say what)? None of the above maybe?

For that matter, who, if anyone, is breaking a law or infringing a patent, or whatever? Just the person who first posted the key to the ‘net? Anyone who posts it anywhere public? Any company that allows it to be posted to their servers? Me, for talking about it?

No doubt it will take years and many court battles to answer those questions (excepting the last, I hope). And it won’t matter at all because the genie is out of the bottle. The key will always be out there somewhere, even if only on a T-shirt.

We should care, though, because this whole thing — especially the reaction by the operators of Digg.com (and many other sites and ISPs, no doubt) — shows the silliness of current “intellectual property” laws. The code allows access to “protected” copyrighted content. Never mind that as I stated above, you still need not only the key, but also the hardware, software, and a legitimate HD-DVD disc.

The number, which is just a series of 32 seemingly random letters and numbers is just one part of the equation. The cheapest and most easily reproduced part, I believe. (The ironic thing is that there are now more people who know about this number, who have seen this number, than there are people who own HD-DVD players and Blu-Ray players combined. Without a player (and a disc), you cannot be a pirate. Without a player, the key is useless to you and you pose no risk to the content companies profits.)

So I spend money on an official hardware player (let’s pretend it is a drive that goes into my computer). Not too many unofficial ones around. That player comes with official software for viewing the content of discs. Next, I go and buy a disc. Again, official, so everyone involved at each step in production paid all the right people for their “intellectual property.”

If it ends there, then no problem, everyone is happy. But what if the software has bugs in it. Perhaps for some reason the software that came with the player and the driver for the video card I have, have some conflicts somewhere. This makes it difficult for me to watch the disc I bought. Or maybe I use Linux and the software that came with the player only runs on MS Windows.

In either case, I would like to watch a disc that is totally legit on hardware that is legit. But I cannot. Even though I have no intention of infringing anyone’s copyright and everyone involved has already made their profit off of honest sales.

What I can do is use different software and this infamous key to view my disc. And that, as I understand it, is currently illegal. Because the DMCA makes breaking the protection on copyrighted works illegal. Even for uses that would not be considered infringing if the content were not protected. Like watching a movie you own on your computer with the software of your choice.

So, because of the DMCA — the law that terrorizes the innocent in America while real pirates counterfeit DVDs by the thousands in South East Asia — the key, that series of 32 seemingly random letters and numbers, is a device for circumventing copyright protection. And therefore illegal.

A series of 32 seemingly random letters and numbers. Not schematics. Not software. Not really a trade secret. Not a patented method or concept. Not really even copyrighted text. Something new? Something new, that sees the world in black and white. One thing Groklaw has taught us is that the courts try to account for the human element, not just seeing things in black and white. The DMCA doesn’t allow for that. It is about strict dichotomy, infringing and not infringing. No human element, circumstances mean nothing, intent means nothing. Fair use means nothing.

The recently revealed key is another reminder of what is wrong with the law.

Anyhow, I really don’t understand what point there is to trying to squash something like this. The music labels are starting to come around to the view that DRM (digital rights management) is not worth the effort. They have learned the hard way the pointlessness of trying to control the way your customers use the stuff they buy from you. This HD-DVD key fiasco shows that the movie companies haven’t learned anything from what the music companies went through.

Just for fun, I wrote up a short perl script to create sequences of 32 random letters and numbers. Who knows, maybe one of the next keys they find will be among the ones I am posting below. Then, no doubt, I will get a cease and desist letter. For something I published first. No, no first amendment issues there.

(Perl gods probably aren’t reading this blog, but if any perl semi-gods are reading, please don’t be offended by the code. I am an English teacher, not a programmer.)


#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

my ($length, @alphanum, $loop1, $loop2, $how_many_do_you_want);

@alphanum = (
'A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M','N','O',
'P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z','0','1','2','3',
'4','5','6','7','8','9'
);

print "\n";

for ($how_many_do_you_want=0; $how_many_do_you_want<100; $how_many_do_you_want++) {

for ($loop1=0; $loop1<16; $loop1++) {

my $length = 36;

for ($loop2=0; $loop2<2; $loop2++) {
$length = rand($length);
$length = int $length;
print $alphanum[$length];
}

if ($loop1!=15) {
print "-";
}
}

print "\n\n";

}

exit


Here are the first of the many thousands of 32 character alpha-numeric strings I plan to create. Don't know if they are copyrightable. If you find a HD-DVD key in there anywhere, let me know.

[edited to clarify and update when I better understood the situation with legal status of the key]