Just proved DRM is more or less meaningless, in most cases, that is. I defended two hackers who were charged of manufacturing and distributing circumvention tools for DVD movies protected by Content Scrabling System (CSS). Granted, there is a DRM circumvention ban in copyright law, but fortunately it applies only to “effective” DRM. From our press release:
According to the court, CSS no longer achieves its protection objective. The court relied on two expert witnesses and said that “!since a Norwegian hacker succeeded in circumventing CSS protection used in DVDs in 1999, end-users have been able to get with ease tens of similar circumventing software from the Internet even free of charge. Some operating systems come with this kind of software pre-installed.” Thus, the court concluded that “CSS protection can no longer be held “˜effective’ as defined in law.” All charges were dismissed.
My own conclusion is that a protection measure is no longer effective, when there is widely available end-user software implementing a circumvention method. So keep on hacking and DRM becomes both technically and legally meaningless!
* * *
Looks like the news must already hit Hollywood. The press release is linked on sites like Slashdot, BoingBoing, Gizmodo and Ars Technica.
