LA Times: Hackers Are the Real Victims–of Industry Greed

[ Thanks to Paul
Eggert for this link. ]

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, Erann Gat, Senior Computer Scientist
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, writes:

“The hackers are coming! The hackers are coming!…
This is the alarm sounded by
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America….
There’s just one small problem: Encryption does not in any way
hinder making an illegal copy of a DVD. It never has.”

“Far from being an illegal and immoral activity, hacking the DVD
encryption codes was entirely legal, moral and necessary in order
to circumvent the DVD industry’s shameful attempts to restrict the
legal rights of consumers through technical coercion.”

“There is a disturbing Orwellian overtone to Valenti’s
attempt to paint hackers as villains and the DVD industry as victim
in the public eye.”

Complete
Story