29 Dec 1999: The temporary restraining order is denied; myself and the many, many others out there supporting intellectual freedom can continue to distribute this information. It is truly phenomonal how a wide-spread group of individuals can, in 36 hours, present such a strong front to a heavy-handed attack by well-funded lawyers. I won't rehash too much of the story here; for full details see Chris DiBona's summary. We must now being preparing for the hearing on the 14th.
Please visit the OpenDVD website for lots of information on why this fight is important, and why DVD CCA's attempts to label us as a bunch of video pirates are completely offbase..
What can you do to help? Get this code. Distribute it to everyone you can. Help stand up for freedom, and the rights of the individual, over profit-protection and heavy-handed legal tactics of big corporations. If you get this code and put it up on your own website, mail me at the address specified below and I will add you to my (far from complete) mirror list. It is now esimated that there are over ten thousand sites providing this software. Join us.
Below is the original text of this page, followed by the mirror list:
Once again, the grim hand of capitalism is trying to wipe out independant thought and freedom to share information. The author of DeCSS has removed his work from distribution, under threat from lawyers representing the "film industry".
Listen, lawyers, and those you represent: This is none of your concern. The horse has been let out, and you are now trying to close the barn door. You made a mistake and picked a very weak encryption scheme, and now are trying to cover your tracks by bringing your biggest weapon, the team of trained weasels you call lawyers, to bear on creative individuals.
This is information. It is not an attempt to violate your copyrights. It is not an affront to your intellectual property. And it will be distributed. You cannot stop it. You can silence one, but not all. There is a lesson you have not yet learned: Your hard taught business tactics from the age of men and muscle will not work in our world. We are smarter than you. We are more flexible than you. You will lose
The disputed code is available here. Download it, and share with everyone you can. Post your own mirrors. They can silence one, but they cannot silence all. This is our right, our freedom, and they will not take it from us.
You can also get some source from the LiVid project which is based on this
Feel free to email me at freecss@devzero.org if you mirror this code and want me to list you here, or have any other comments.
Other mirrors:
(This list is far, far from complete. It is simply a small sample of the people who have emailed me showing their support for this fight by mirroring the software)
For a much more complete mirror list, and a brief discussion of some other issues in this case, see http://www.humpin.org/decss/.