“…Perens said he plans to break the DMCA during a presentation on digital rights management (DRM) Friday afternoon at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention in San Diego. He is scheduled to demonstrate a souped-up DVD player that can circumvent certain DRM technologies created to control the availability of DVD movies by region.
“The issue is one that hits close to home for Perens. On a recent trip to London, the Linux developer and Hewlett-Packard employee said he purchased two movies on DVD : “Gladiator,” the heroic story of a muscle-bound gladiator bringing honor back to the Roman empire, and “Artificial Intelligence: AI,” Steven Spielberg’s futuristic take on the progress of artificial intelligence.
“When he returned to the U.S. to watch his new titles, the movies wouldn’t play in his DVD player, he said. That’s because Hollywood has devised a system that classifies DVDs by geographical “zones” and prohibits movies from being played outside the zone they are manufactured for.
“‘When Hollywood releases a DVD in London, that DVD will not play in a U.S. DVD player,’ Perens explained. That is, unless you know how to hack your DVD player, which is exactly what Perens plans to demonstrate during his presentation. Perens purchased on eBay a player that had been modified, using a software application available on the Internet, to play DVDs from various regional zones.
“‘I’m going to explain how the player was modified,’ he said. Technically, under the DMCA, Perens’ explanation of the technology makes him liable for a fine of US$500,000, he said. And although his presentation might seem like a frivolous crime, tempting the DMCA has been a risky endeavor by those who have tried similar protests before him…”
Read the full story at Infoworld or VNU Net
Related
- Update: Bruce Peren’s DMCA challenge was no go
- MS Windows Media 9 Series with DRM to compete with open source MPEG-4
- Let your opinion on DMCA be heard!
- Open source (GPU Gnutella client) project adds “no military use” clause to the GPL
- Linux’ Alan Cox issues wake-up call concerning DMCA
