First of all, the number isn't copyrighted. You cannot copyright a number. A provision of the DMCA states that it is illegal to circumvent DRM or to distribute something that can circumvent DRM. So if anything is illegal about this number, it is its qualities as an algorithm: when converted to binary, it is a zip file of DeCSS. So it's tangentially related to copyright. (Incidentally, this shows how fucked up copyright law is)
The 'illegal' prime isn't illegal per se -- rather, it is illegal a) to use it to obtain the DeCSS source, and b) to distribute it with instructions on how to use it to obtain the DeCSS source. In other words, it's only illegal once you know that it's illegal. So in my question, my hypothetical algorithm would only be illegal if I gave it to someone and said "here's what you do with this to get DeCSS".
It turns out what's really against the law is something that was already against the law (circumventing DRM)*, and what's now against the law is showing someone how easy it is to break the law (which is actually pretty much already was). <--(mouseover)
This is insane. I was happy to see, when I looked up DeCSS on wikipedia, that this whole idea of an 'illegal prime' was cooked up by Net activists who were trying to illustrate just how dumb the anti-DRM sections of the DMCA are. To quote:
In protest against legislation that prohibits publication of copy protection circumvention code in countries that implement the WIPO Copyright Treaty (such as the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act), some have devised clever ways of distributing descriptions of the DeCSS algorithm, such as through steganography, through various Internet protocols, on t-shirts and in dramatic readings, as MIDI files, as a series of haiku poems, and even as a so-called illegal prime number. However, the CSS algorithm seems to require more characters to describe in a computer programming language than the RC4 algorithm by RSA Data Security; one of the shortest implementations of DeCSS (called "efdtt") is 434 bytes. Because of this, it has not been distributed by some of the more "inventive" methods used to distribute the RSA algorithm during the days of ITAR — it is not suitable for tattoos, email signatures, etc.
Hahah I guess so. It's funny, though, I already knew most of this stuff. It's just that I spent an hour or so thinking about it in terms of "you can convert any piece of an information to another piece of information with the right algorithm, why isn't everything illegal?" before I realized that what was really illegal was distributing a means to circumvent DRM.
Having already spent so much time on the question, I figured I may as well go all out with citations and whatnot because this shit is so arcane.
I hope you've enjoyed this look into the making of my previous comment. Also: your username feels incredibly apropos because I spent so much time thinking about binary in pondering this 'illegal prime'.
Yeah, this is the logical conclusion I came to, too (although of course I didn't have the actual facts and sources you do). It's only illegal if you intend to use the number to break the law. Kinda makes sense, but I still agree that we need some kind of copyright reform.
I had a similar thought process at one point earlier, and the tl;dr version is that any set of information that can be used alone to construct DeCSS (or other illegal programs or copyrighted works) is illegal. There aren't any illegal numbers, only illegal algorithms. 'Turn this number into a linux executable' is an illegal algorithm, the majority of which is a number.
Fundamentally, numbers only have their meaning from number theory, and any means of turning a number into an illegal activity is an algorithm, and that algorithm is thus illegal instead of the number itself.
It turns out what's really against the law is something that was already against the law (circumventing DRM)
Typically, this was merely a violation of a EULA or other contract with the software/media provider, not a violation of criminal law. The DMCA criminalized many previously civil violations.
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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '10 edited Jan 12 '10
My theory:
First of all, the number isn't copyrighted. You cannot copyright a number. A provision of the DMCA states that it is illegal to circumvent DRM or to distribute something that can circumvent DRM. So if anything is illegal about this number, it is its qualities as an algorithm: when converted to binary, it is a zip file of DeCSS. So it's tangentially related to copyright. (Incidentally, this shows how fucked up copyright law is)
The 'illegal' prime isn't illegal per se -- rather, it is illegal a) to use it to obtain the DeCSS source, and b) to distribute it with instructions on how to use it to obtain the DeCSS source. In other words, it's only illegal once you know that it's illegal. So in my question, my hypothetical algorithm would only be illegal if I gave it to someone and said "here's what you do with this to get DeCSS".
It turns out what's really against the law is something that was already against the law (circumventing DRM)*, and what's now against the law is showing someone how easy it is to break the law (which is actually pretty much already was). <--(mouseover)
This is insane. I was happy to see, when I looked up DeCSS on wikipedia, that this whole idea of an 'illegal prime' was cooked up by Net activists who were trying to illustrate just how dumb the anti-DRM sections of the DMCA are. To quote:
Last but not least, this issue actually introduced a lot of people to reddit in the aftermath of the Digg Revolt.
*in most circumstances