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.