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Pigdog Journal DeCSS Distribution Center
2000-2-16 16:17:23
By Mr. Bad
Hey, so, I've been really mad
about the recent spate of horrible witch hunts by the MPAA against
people who use, distribute, or even LINK TO sites that distribute DeCSS, a piece of software
used for playing DVDs on Linux. The MPAA has got a bee in their
bonnet about this DeCSS. They think it's good for COPYING DVDs,
which, in fact, it's totally useless for. But they're suing
everybody ANYWAYS, the bastardos! Go look at OpenDVD.org to find out lots
more about this really despicable travesty.
Anyways, I feel like I need to do something. I've been talking
about the the whole travesty here on Pigdog Journal, of course,
and helped with the
big flier campaign here in SF and everything, but I feel like
I should do something more, like help redistribute the DeCSS software.
There are a lot of problems with this, obviously. First and
foremost, Pigdog Journal is a collaborative effort, and I don't
want to bring down the legal shitstorm on the rest of the
Pigdoggers just because I'm a Free Software fanatic. Also, I'm a
total chicken, and don't want to go to court.
So, I decided that if I couldn't distribute DeCSS, I would
distribute DeCSS. Like, I could distribute another piece
of software called DeCSS, that is perfectly legal in every way,
and would be difficult for even the DVD-CCA's lawyers to find
fault with.
So that's what I'm doing. I wrote a small utility called "DeCSS"
that strips Cascading Style
Sheet tags from an HTML document. Yes, agreed, that's pretty
much USELESS, but what the fuck. Maybe somebody wants to do that.
AND it makes the name of the software much more plausible.
Let me make this absolutely clear: THE LINKS
BELOW DO NOT GO TO THE DeCSS SOFTWARE FOR DVDS. You cannot
find that software on this site. This is a completely DIFFERENT
DeCSS. Same name, different software. Go ahead and download the
software and check it out. A cursory review will show that it's
not the same software at all.
I encourage you to distribute DeCSS on your Web site, if you have
one. I think of this as kind of an "I am Spartacus" type thing. If
lots of people distribute DeCSS on their Web sites, on Usenet
newsgroups, by email, or whatever,
it'll provide a convenient layer of fog over the OTHER DeCSS. I figure if we waste just FIVE
MINUTES of some DVD-CCA Web flunkey's time looking for DeCSS,
we've done some small service for The Cause.
[And a brief note for said Web flunkey: d00d, what are you DOING?
How can you possibly be doing this job of searching around the
Web and pointing fingers at people for trying to distribute free
software? What is the matter with you? Have you no respect for
the many hackers that have come before you, who built up this
Web that is making you a living? How can you participate in this
ugly, ugly action? If you feel you need to do it to keep your
job, think again. Send me
email, and I'll personally help you to find a better job, with
better pay, and WAY better karma. You need to walk away from
this crappy gig while you still have some scrap of dignity.
Hell, if you walk away, you can be a HERO! Think about that for
a second, man!]
Anyways, so, DeCSS. The first version is version 0.05, and is
available at one of the links below. You'll need perl 5.x, of course, but you
probably knew that already. There's installation instructions in
the README file in the packages.
Distribution packages for version 0.05:
- decss.tar.gz, a tar'red
and gzip'ped version for all kinds of Unix-like systems
- decss.zip a zip'ped
version for Windows 95 and Windows 98 and Windows NT and
Windows 2000 and whatever
The software is (C) 2000, Mr. Bad of
Pigdog Journal, (http://www.pigdog.org/). It's distributed under
the
Artistic License, the same license that perl is distributed
under. PLEASE mirror this software on your Web site! Send it
where you want! Use a skywriting plane to print out the code in smoke!
If you don't feel like copying the DeCSS code to your machine,
just link to this page, "http://www.pigdog.org/decss/". That's
something you could get in big trouble for for the other DeCSS
software, what with the hysterical attitude of the MPAA and all.
For an extra-fancy link, why not use this handy "DeCSS Now!"
button?
Just add this fancy HTML to your Web page:
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.pigdog.org/decss/"><img
border="0" width="100" height="42" alt="DeCSS Now!"
src="http://www.pigdog.org/images/decss-now.png"></a></p>
Start spreadin' the love, eh? And FUCK the MPAA.
Want to set up your own mirror site of this page? Click here to find out how!
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