[Zuerst erschienen auf symlink.ch]

Der wichtigste Punkt an der ganzen Sache ist der, dass Schwarzkopien effektiv in Konkurrenz zu legal erworbenen Kopien steht.

Der Kampf gegen Schwarzkopien kann also eigentlich nur mit
marktwirtschaftlichen Mitteln gewonnen werden, und weder mit
legalen noch mit technischen Massnahmen. Das einzige was hilft
ist den Markt für Schwarzkopien auszutrocknen, respektive unattraktiv
zu machen. Es muss einerseits mühsamer sein eine Schwarzkopie zu
bekommen, und andererseits darf diese nicht Mehrwert besitzen.

Ein frei kopierbares MP3-File hat gegenüber einem Kopiergeschützten
WMA-File einen deutlichen Mehrwert; ein DIVX hat gegenüber einer DVD
den Mehrwert dass es weder Regioncode hat, noch 50% der Prozessorleistung
für ein Content Scrambling System verbrät. Damit verschiebt DRM den Mehrwert
zugunsten von Schwarzkopien und erreicht genau das Gegenteil dessen was
beabsichtigt war.

Die einzige Möglichkeit ist also den Erhalt der Werke möglichst einfach
zu gestalten, die Bezahlung auch für Kleinstbeträge einfach und auch
Anonym zu ermöglichen (Weil die Aufgabe von Anonymität auch schon wieder
den Mehrwert verringert!), keine Kopierschutzmassnahmen einzubauen, einen
vernünftige Preisgestaltung zu betreiben und nach Möglichkeit zusätzlichen
Mehrwert zu bieten (Beispiele sind schöne Booklets für CDs, sehr gute
Qualität für DVDs, Surround-Sound bei DVDs etc.)

Der Kampf gegen Tauschbörsen kann erfolgreich sein, aber nur dann wenn
der Leidensdruck für die Benutzung einer Tauschbörse (lange Downloadzeiten,
unbekannte Qualität der Files) grösser ist als der Mehrwert den die
Schwarzkopien gegenüber einer legal erworbenen Kopie bieten können.

Dazu ist es aber allererstens notwendig dass die Inhaltsanbieter
abstand von Kopierschutzmassnahmen und DRM nehmen; selber anfangen
die Inhalte zum Download anzubieten (und zwar Weltweit; soweit die
Rechte verzettelt sind müssen die eben gesammelt werden, aber das
ist ein Problem der Anbieter) und geeignete Zahlungssysteme unterstützen
(z.b. eCash).

Sobald genügend gute Alternativen existieren kann dann auch mit dem
ganz normalen Urheberrechtsgesetz gegen die Tauschbörsen vorgegangen
werden. Einerseits machen sich ja nur die Anbieter von Schwarzkopien
strafbar (was den Kreis der belangbaren Leute verringert), und andererseits
ist zu erwarten dass die “Kundschaft” von P2P-Tauschbörsen zurückgeht sobald
geeignete, sprich Konkurrenzfähige, legale Angebote existieren. Damit
verringern sich dann die Anbieterzahl von Schwarzkopien auf ein Niveau,
das entweder legal in den Griff zu bekommen ist, oder aber deren Aktionen
unter “Werbemassnahmen” verbucht werden können.

Die Tauschbörsen können von den Anbietern als Barometer benutzt werden:
Wenn viele Leute Schwarzkopien tauschen, dann ist das legale Angebot zu
schlecht. Ganz einfach.

Peter Keel,

Piracy: 1 the practice or an act of robbery of ships at sea;
2 a similar practice or act in other forms, esp. hijacking.

Yesterday, some poor software-company became victim of software-pirates. The well-armed band marched through the front-entrance at 10.00 am., just as most of the companies employees were at their coffee-break. At the same time, another group of pirates wearing black masks and kalashnikovs landed with their helicopter on the roof of the building.

The company had no chance to react and fight back; some company employees were taken hostage until they surrendered the keys to their safes and the passwords to their servers; others had to march the plank out of the 5th floor of the building and died. Some developers were given the chance to work for the pirates or to be defenestrated or shot as well.

Evidently, there is some pretty black marketing magic at work when comparing illegal copying to hijacking. There is obviously some defamation-campaign going on, which aims to put copyright-violators onto the same level with hijackers, robbers and killers. This is very bad regarding two different aspects: a) its demagogic propaganda in its most evil form and b) it makes the real existing piracy of ships (which is still responsible for hundreds of victims every year) look less bad.

The term “piracy” in this context is obviously coined by a very
strong and unscrupulous “intellectual property”-industry,
compromised of software-companies, the movie-industry, the music industry and for a smaller part the book-publishers; along with lots of minions in the press, television and radio.

Indeed, terming illegal copying “piracy” has been a huge marketing-success, sometimes used so unanimously to even refer to legal copying; which is then supposed to be “piracy” as well, no matter that there is a fair use provision in every copyright-law.

In using the Term “piracy” with regard to copyright-violations, you automatically spread the propaganda of that “intellectual-property”-industry; so I would advise you to refrain from doing this, as long as you want to maintain an objective position.

Peter Keel,

If an advertisement insults our intelligence, you should not buy the product — Richard Feynmann

I’m currently boycotting various corporations and entieties because of
the rubbish they do, becaue their commercials question my intelligence,
or because they behave like villains, robber-barons and big brother.

Using patents as weapon

• Amazon.com — for a lawsuit on a “one-click shopping” patent.
• Patent Offices — for being a bad idea
• Unisys — lzw-compression patent enforcing
• Akamai.net — allegedly Digital Island violated their patents.
• British Telecom — patent on Hyperlinks. How stupid can you get?

Enforcing copyright while violating “fair-use”

• Sony Pictures Entertainment — DVD lawsuits, MP3 lawsuits
• Universal Music — MP3 lawsuits
• EMI — MP3 lawsuits
• Polygram — MP3 lawsuits
• Bob Dylan — for using traditional chords but supporting lengthening
  copyright-duration for another 20 years. What a bigot.
• The Chamber Brothers — Copyright bullying, sueing MP3.com
• The Coasters — Copyright bullying, sueing MP3.com
• The Original Drifters — Copyright bullying, sueing MP3.com
• Metallica — Sueing Napster Inc. and Universities which have not
  banned Napster.
• Dr. Dre — Also sueing Napster Inc.
• Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Disney Enterprises, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits, cheesy cartoons, plus
  lengthening the copyright from 70 to 95 years; while using heavily
  public domain material like “Aladdin”. Bigots.
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Paramount Pictures Corporation — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• TriStar Pictures, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• United Artists Pictures, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• United Artists Corporation — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Universal City Studios, Inc. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) — DVD/DeCSS lawsuits
• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) — MP3 lawsuits
• Business Software Alliance (BSA) — Copyright bullying
• Software Piracy Agency (SPA) — Copyright bullying

Otherwise doing bullshit

• Applied Digital Technologies — for producing Big Brother equipment
• Hasbro — for doing bullshit with ex-Avalon Hill products
• Mattel — for CyberPatrol blocking criticism on CyberPatrol and
  sueing People criticising it.
• McDonalds — for trashy products
• Microsoft — for trashy products, playing monopoly, microsoft keyboards,
  proprietary file formats and much much more.
• Doubleclick.net — for spying on web-users
• Etoys.com — for domain bullying against etoy.
• Real Networks (Realaudio) — for spying on users
• National Security Agency (NSA) — spying out the whole world

Better behave

Either they play nice or I’ll boycott them as well.

• LucasArts
• Sun Microsystems
• Truste — violating their own privacy policy (a mistake?)

You’ve got Mail! Today, it’s from the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America. And this is what they write. You probably realize, that not exactly I did get this mail, but my internet service provider, which happens to be my employer.

Apparently the MPAA is trying to intimidate people around the world and their ISPs with a law (DMCA) which does only exist in the United States of America. Thank you MPAA, I hope you realize that I now consider you a bunch of assholes, miscreants, nogoods and persons of low moral fiber?

Apparently, my essay on Copyprotection had a link to a local copy of DeCSS in it, which they found.

Well anyway, I sent them this answer.

Peter Keel,

Wir schreiben das Jahr 2001. Ein Krieg überzieht Europa und Amerika. Kleine und Grosse Unternehmen aber auch Privatleute haben Söldner angeworben, mit dem Zweck die jeweiligen Gegner zu schädigen oder zu vernichten. Marodierende Söldnerhorden haben Blut gerochen, und ziehen durch die Länder, immer auf der Suche nach fetter Beute, wer dabei alles auf der Strecke liegen bleibt, wen sie alles ruinieren ist ihnen egal. In Scharmützeln und Schlachten schlagen Sie sich gegen die Söldner der jeweiligen Gegenpartei, wer sich keine eigenen Söldner leisten kann hat Pech gehabt.

Diese Söldner heissen Anwälte, und die Schlachtfelder Gerichtshöfe.

Manche Kanzleien sind dazu übergegangen auf eigene Faust zu arbeiten und betrieben Abmahnwesen.

Peter Keel,

IRC’en mit Linux

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Last modified Thu January 17 2019 10:09:47 CET by Peter Keel

Yes, copyprotection-schemes, be it for software, be it for content does not work — ever. And here’s why.

Encryption doesn’t work this way

Encryption may be looked at as a solution to the problem, but really isn’t. You could theoretically use public-key cryptography to encrypt your data, with a public-key only known to your program or hardware. This is what CSS is in DVD. However, due to the nature of cryptography something has to know the key on the client side. And if your software knows it, somebody might reverse-engineer it.

Encryption allows essentially two (!) modes:

    client		transfer	server
    cleartext		cleartext	encrypted
    cleartext		encrypted	encrypted

The first case is like telnet — you connect, send your password in cleartext, it is encrypted on the server and compared to a already encrypted password. The second being the case with Secure-Shell (ssh). In this case the cleartext-password is key for a challenge which is exchanged through the network. The password is not sent through the network in this case, and thus relatively secure. The idea of having everything everywhere encrypted doesn’t work — you’d need some further
method of encrypting the cleartext on the client-side (this is what some people do who encrypt password-lists in order just to remember one password). Somewhere something has to know a cleartext-password. Hiding this password is what the DVD-industry was trying to do, and the Music-industry is trying to enforce on MP3, and the Electronic-book-industry is trying to achieve.

To explain a bit further: You’ve got the encryption key, the media is encrypted. The user obviously needs a decryption-key in order to use the media. You can of course, hide this key somewhere, but at least the software or hardware needs to have the cleartext-key somewhere some time — and if something on a system you don’t control has your key, the owner of that system might get it.

You don’t control the user’s computer

That means, the user is free to run whichever software he wants — and he has the ability to change everyting on it. This goes even further, hardware isn’t safe either. Suppose your hardware knows your key, the media can only be decrypted with that hardware — but there’s nothing to insure the already decrypted data flowing into the system is not intercepted and saved to disk. So you’d need not only to control the application which interprets the data, but the control the whole operating system which the data passes. This might be indeed seem possible with dedicated hardware (like an e-book), but even this can be circumvented, at least by hardware-engineering — and since you
need to put new data into your hardware, at least a one-way street of communicating to that device already exists, opening possibilities of bugs which could be exploited, for instance to modify the firmware.

Techs can do it

No matter how good you are, how sophisticated your copyprotection- measures are. Somewhere out there is someone who is better and who will break it. It may take minutes, or it may take a year or two, but it will be broken. And if you make the mistake of not treating people which do not belong to the 99 percent of your intended consumers equally, this percent will be the one to break it, “because it wouldn’t run on hem pet-operating system of choice”. If you open a technology,
all you probably need is to supply software for one system. People will automatically want it on their system and produce programs for it. If you “close” the technology, you will have to provide software for probably 20 operating systems, since some Amiga-(or whatever-)hacker will break it in order to be able to use it as well. Furthermore, the free-software community won’t like it anyway and probably crack it because
of the sole fact that it’s closed, in order to write free software which accesses your data. And history tells you quite clearly that absolutely all copyprotection-measures have been broken so far. Software-copyprotection, dongles, DVD, Microsofts “secure” sound format, CD-copyprotections and so on. Everything.

Copyprotections is costly

So why even develop copyprotection if it only costs money and will be broken anyway? And besides of every copyprotection-measure being broken, things get sold anyway. Take CD’s: Everyone can copy them, convert its content to MP3 or whatever; but they’re being sold quite nicely. Of course, you probably loose 20 percent of your “possible” sales, but hey, you still got 80 percent — and you don’t even need to worry about copyprotection and such. And possibly, due to the higher acceptance, you might even sell more than if it were copy-protected…

Proprietary things won’t sell

This is actually quite a heavy argument: What if your consumers won’t buy your hardware/software because it doesn’t work like they’re expect it to do? If they can’t load your MP3-player with the sounds they want, they probably won’t buy it. Today, every hardware-MP3-player can download music from a PC. Nobody will buy one if it can’t. The same will apply to e-books. So you need to comply to the users wishes in order to make your technology widespread. Going even further: Videotext (VTX/BTX) never took off — because it was proprietary and nobody except the various telcos were allowed to change something. On the other hand, the internet just stormed everything, because of open technology. Everyone can do what he wants with the underlying technology, because its open. And the same applies to any technology developed. Everyone can read and write a CD. If you can’t do this with DVD, people won’t use it on a broad base. DVD actually now has chances of becoming the next standard because its encryption was broken.

Choice: Niche-Technology or Killer-Application

It sums up to this. Keep it private and it gets its niche, or open it and make it the next killer-app. MP3 already is, DVD could be next, e-books won’t until their encryption is broken.

Update: DVD Companies don’t get it

Although this hasn’t really to do with copyprotection (DVDs may be copied 1:1 without touching the content scrambling system), css is used to make it impossible to use a DVD-player which has not agreed to the terms of the DVD-CA, and it makes it impossible to copy the movie (or parts thereof) onto other media than DVD. The issue is about the same as with copyprotection, as it denies you certain use of the data. The companies behind DVD, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, TriStar Pictures, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, United Artists Pictures, Inc., United Artists Corporation, Universal City Studios, Inc., Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. and their respective lawyers, Sargoy, Stein, Rosen & Shapiro still don’t get it and try to get every site to remove the css-decoder. The least thing we can probably do is to put it on a page and wait until they write us. If they need to write to 10’000 of people, they probably realize that this makes just no sense. Oh, and I’ll remove above link as soon as someone writes me — on paper.

Peter Keel, 13.11.1999

Addendum: MPAA tries to intimidate ISPs?

Indeed, the MPAA wrote, probably. Not on Paper, but an email,
from mpaa23@pacbell.net. And not to me but to my provider. Since I know my provider pretty well, I got it forwarded right away, here’s the Mail from mpaa23@pacbell.net, where mpaa23@pacbell.net allegedly speaks on behalf of the MPAA. Shift-click on the link to get the whole mail, including headers. A bad joke? Why would the MPAA not use its own domain (mpaa.org)? Why would it send an anonymous email? There is no name at the bottom of the message. How do they get the idea that killer.discordia.ch somehow should have the IP-Address of 193.246.253.10 (which is the DNS-server of my provider, and in no way home of my webpages)? Aren’t they capable of even doing a simple whois-query?

This leaves me with two possibilities: Either somebody is playing a stupid joke, or the MPAA is a completely clueless bunch of morons who aren’t even capable of doing a whois-query, who cannot maintain (or or aren’t even capable of letting it maintain) a mailserver on their own, and worst of all, don’t send their mails to the person who allegedly infringed their rights, but sneakily send it to its provider, in the hope to intimidate it, so he would pull the plug.

I’m currently researching which laws their css (not DeCSS!) violates, and it seems clear that the “fair use” right is completely violated, though the implications with the (probably unconstitutional, even according to US-law) US-DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) are not clear. Here in switzerland there is no DMCA, but there is a “fair use” right, and there is a right to reverse-engineer…

Peter Keel, 26.9.2000

Addendum: I got a letter on Paper!

Due to a misconfiguration of my snailmail-accounts, I only got the letter (on paper) from the MPAA today. As pormised, I removed the CSS-Decoder from my page. The link above goes now to a general Site about CSS/DeCSS. Of course, you can get DeCSS there. At least the MPAA hat something to do and to spend the money they’ve garnered. Here’s the Mail I sent to mpaa23@pacbell.net.

A note to the MPAA: I removed DeCSS because I promised to do if you write me on paper. You did, so I removed it. And no, the Link to the foreign site won’t magically disappear if you write me again, we’ve had that, try something else. Like a) bribing me, b) bribing swiss politicians into accepting your DMCA c) any other measure you think is adequate to censor free speech, kill privacy, violate the constitution and destroy democracy. Your greed and lack of scruple is just unbelievable, read my (earlier) essay on YOU: Conquistadores on the Internet, but maybe the title is a bit misleading, since you’re really a predator in the real world too, ripping apart human rights for financial gain.

Peter Keel,

Switzerland tries its take on a surveillance-system which could be used to
monitor all satellite-based communication, inlcuding mobil phones, some
internet traffic and more. Such a system already exists, operated by the
USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain, called Echelon (see
the Statewatch Report from 1997 on Echelon). The Satos 3 project was slipped
half-covertly into the budget as “renovations for military buildings” and
is now built in the town of Zimmerwald and Heimenschwand. The following
are resources, mainly press coverage, on the subject of Satos 3.

References

• 11.11.1999:
  Weltwoche: Schnüffler träumen von der All-Macht
• 20.11.1999: Tages Anzeiger: Lauschangriff via Satellit
• 24.11.1999: Tages Anzeiger: 386 Millionen für Militärbauten
• 24.11.1999:
  Le Temps: Les «grandes oreilles» des services secrets inspirent la méfiance
• 29.11.1999: parlament.ch: Kommission stimmt der Immobilienbotschaft Militär 2000 zu
• 02.12.1999:
  Weltwoche 48/99: Ohne Spürsinn, Biss und Argwohn
• 08.12.1999: Tages Anzeiger: Blind und taub fürs grosse Abhorchprojekt
• 08.12.1999: NZZ Online: Controversy over Intelligence Wiretapping
• 09.12.1999:
  newswindow.ch: “Big brother is watching you”
• 10.12.1999: Tages Anzeiger: Zweites Ja zum Abhorchprojekt
• 10.12.1999:
  Le Temps: Le parlement octroie des crédits pour l’espionnage
• 13.12.1999: Swiss Internet User Group: Internet-Insider zu SATOS 3: ziel- und zwecklos
• 14.12.1999:
  Computerworld: Protest gegen Schnüffeldienst
• 14.12.1999:
  newswindow.ch: Beratungen über das Bundesbudget 2000 aufgenommen
• 15.12.1999: Tages Anzeiger: “Satos 3” zum Dritten
• 16.12.1999:
  Woz 50/99
• 27.07.2000:
  Weltwoche 30/00: Die Welt der grossen Ohren

Webpages

• clinch.ch: The Big Brother is watching you
  [german]
• Das Ministerium für Wahrheit: Informationen zu ECHELON
  [german]
• Der lange Arm aus dem Dunkelkammer
  [german]

Related issues

• 
  ENFOPOL Papiere
  [german]

Peter Keel,