Ari Brown 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 ÒCensorship in any form is the enemy of creativity, since it cuts off the life blood of creativity: ideas.Ó -Allan Jenkins Why do we need copyright laws? What purpose do they serve? Do we even need them? IÕm sure everyone has downloaded something illegally - be it music or movies, games or software. IÕve done it too - not that IÕll ever legally admit it, but I have illegally downloaded materials. In this day and age, copy protection measures are one of the most important (but not necessarily good) actions companies are taking. Take a look at normal copyright laws. If I download a song from Limewire or BitTorrent, I will have just submitted myself to the criminal underworld of the internet - which, I might add, is the number one location where copy laws are looked down on. But why are they so frowned upon? WouldnÕt people want to make money off of their software or music? Sure they would, and they can do that under Open Source style licensing. This allows them to freely distribute their work and make copies of it, but those who then get your work cannot sell it. Open Source licensing was designed so that no one could steal ideas or restrict ideas. Copyright laws, in their current state, restrict the flow of ideas due to the monetary cost involved and the inability to distribute works published under such a license as effectively as possible. The idea of restricting ideas is like censorship. It blocks the flow of information. In the world of computing, censorship is a very, very, vile and heinous act. A major factor of the internet is the idea that there is no censorship! Ideas and information can flow freely. But say people do want copy laws on their music. The laws arenÕt all bad, are they? Well, theyÕre not. The idea behind them is to keep other artists from stealing music and selling it as their own. ItÕs their ship, shouldnÕt they pilot it? IÕm glad to say that there is an option. People donÕt have to tie a cinderblock full of laws to their music or software when they make it; they can now use Creative Commons style licensing. Creative Commons is a legally recognized licensing format which permits people to copy and redistribute your work, but only if they give the creator full credit for the work. Information can flow freely, under this license, and the creator get all of the credit. There are many books and papers as to how to obtain money from open source (and creative commons) works. Take a look at the title of this essay. ItÕs a string of random numbers. Well, thatÕs not totally true. The string does serve a purpose. And although in the future I wonÕt be allowed to tell anyone what it is, or even to print this number, IÕll say it anyway (for the sake of our freedoms); itÕs the key to HD DVDs. The key to HD DVDs! Really? No, this doesnÕt mean that one could now crack all HD DVDs. In fact, there isnÕt really anything one can do with this number. The one person who managed to use this number was only able to use it in a special Ôproof-of-conceptÕ program he wrote. Maybe three people - four, if weÕre lucky - know how to implement that number. But nonetheless, the MPAA wishes to make this number illegal to print anywhere - yes, this paper may, in fact, become illegal. The MPAAÕs actions are wrong on many levels. First, how can one copyright a number? Numbers have been here for ever, and that hexadecimal number (base 16) actually translates to 13256278887989457651018865901401704640. Can that be copyrighted? No more than one can copyright 10, 12, or even 4567456324. The MPAA is trying to legally perform an illegal act. Letters, on the other hand, combine to make up words which are then copyrighted. However, the words then have certain meanings and connotations attached, which numbers do not. This hexadecimal value is only a number used by the computer to decode various parts of the disc media. Current copyright laws arenÕt necessary. People can use Creative Commons licensing, BSD licensing, Open Source licensing, or any other of the ÒcopyleftÓ style licenses. These are all a part of freedom of information; individuals canÕt control the flow of ideas. To do so would be like trying to control the wind. To help fight the battle of copyright laws, people should publish all of their work under open licenses, like those stated above. What copyright laws do is censorship, and censorship in any form is the enemy of creativity. Perl script to decode DVDs #!/usr/bin/perl -w # 531-byte qrpff-fast, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz # MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout # arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order $_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=( $m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16 -2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h =5;$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$ d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=$t&($d>>12^$d>>4^ $d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=$t[$_]^ (($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval Illegal Prime Number which Creates a Program to Decode DVDs 4 85650 78965 73978 29309 84189 46942 86137 70744 20873 51357 92401 96520 73668 69851 34010 47237 44696 87974 39926 11751 09737 77701 02744 75280 49058 83138 40375 49709 98790 96539 55227 01171 21570 25974 66699 32402 26834 59661 96060 34851 74249 77358 46851 88556 74570 25712 54749 99648 21941 84655 71008 41190 86259 71694 79707 99152 00486 67099 75923 59606 13207 25973 79799 36188 60631 69144 73588 30024 53369 72781 81391 47979 55513 39994 93948 82899 84691 78361 00182 59789 01031 60196 18350 34344 89568 70538 45208 53804 58424 15654 82488 93338 04747 58711 28339 59896 85223 25446 08408 97111 97712 76941 20795 86244 05471 61321 00500 64598 20176 96177 18094 78113 62200 27234 48272 24932 32595 47234 68800 29277 76497 90614 81298 40428 34572 01463 48968 54716 90823 54737 83566 19721 86224 96943 16227 16663 93905 54302 41564 73292 48552 48991 22573 94665 48627 14048 21171 38124 38821 77176 02984 12552 44647 44505 58346 28144 88335 63190 27253 19590 43928 38737 64073 91689 12579 24055 01562 08897 87163 37599 91