Rich Fiscus
24 Jul 2008 22:41
In Afterdawn 's home country of Finland one of the most interesting DRM-related cases ever may be going to the country's highest court if the defendants get their way. At issue is the question of whether the CSS encryption used on DVDs is legally considered "ineffective."
A Finnish court had initially ruled that bypassing CSS encryption doesn't violate Finland's implementation of the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) because it specifically mentions that "ineffective" DRM isn't covered. But is CSS actually ineffective?
According to an appeals court it's not. In May the Helsinki Court of Appeals overturned the lower court's ruling.
It's generally accepted that DVDs will be the dominant home video format for at least the next few years. With the possibliity that it may be legal to break that encryption would make it possible to do things like watching DVDs in Linux and even distribute tools to bypass CSS.