The Washington Times: Gadgets Outpace Laws in Digital Age

“Another interesting case involves copyright protection on DVD
movies. As most people know, you can buy movies on DVD discs and,
for example, watch them on a laptop computer while flying. To
protect the contents, the movie people invented a
content-scrambling system, which encrypts the movie so that only
people who paid for it can watch it.

“Sounds reasonable. If Hollywood makes a movie, it ought to be
able to prevent illegal reproduction. Except…

“Two problems arose with CSS, both born of the very nature of
digital technology. First, if your computer ran Linux, an operating
system increasingly popular among the computer literate, you
couldn’t watch the movie you had just bought. This struck many as
outrageous: If you shelled out for a DVD of ‘L.A. Confidential,’
you ought to be able to watch your movie on any machine you
chose…”

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