Lots of interest in a new decision from the Helsinki District Court, which has ruled the copy-protection system for DVDs, known as CSS, is not an effective TPM and therefore circumventing it does not constitute infringement.
Michael Geist
mgeist@uottawa.ca
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This sounds like good news for consumers (and just plain practical, which it is) but in reality this legal decision is completely back-asswards. It’s not an effective protection mechanism because it’s easily bypassed with available means, so cracking it is legal. But in order for it to become easily bypassed (and hence legal) it first needs to be cracked, which is illegal. That’s right kids; today’s word is “catch 22”!
This is good news, as the new copyright law passed in Finland recently
gave the digital media corporations the power to decide how, when and with
what equipment the consumers would be allowed to use their content – since
all “strong protection” methods were made illegal to circumvent under threat
of rather harsh punishment.
Guess the Court decided in favor of consumers instead of bending over to the
will of our corrupt Ministry of Culture that passed these measures in very
shady manner to the law.