92214563780560366130661709445338835634
In a very small (and pathetic) way I have committed an act of civil disobedience in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau by posting the above number. Not only have I broken the law, but I have made a criminal out of you as well, since this webpage now resides in your computer's cache.
You may be suspecting that my brain has overheated from wearing a tinfoil helmet but it is not me that has lost grip with reality but the Recording Industry Association of America or RIAA. The above number is not merely the solution to the equation
x=2(46107281890280183065330854722668 + 1)
but is in fact the numerical representation of the AACS processing key that allows you to decrypt HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. That string of numbers is illegal to publish, possess, utter or propagate according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
You could be thinking to yourself, oh well, I just won't use that number as the PIN to my ATM, but what if I told you that prime numbers, those crazy little numbers that Euclid talked about in 300 B.C. and groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation award money for finding, can also be illegal.
493108359702850190027577767239076495728490777215020863208075
018409792627885097658864557802013660073286795447341128317353
678312015575359819785450548115719393458773300380099326195058
764525023820408110189885042615176579941704250889037029119015
870030479432826073821469541570330227987557681895601624030064
111516900872879838194258271674564774816684347928464580929131
531860070010043353189363193439129486044503709919800477094629
215581807111691530318762884778783541575932891093295447350881
882465495060005019006274705305381164278294267474853496525745
368151170655028190555265622135314631042100866286797114446706
366921982586158111251555650481342076867323407655054859108269
562666930662367997021048123965625180068183236539593483956753
575575324619023481064700987753027956186892925380693305204238
149969945456945774138335689906005870832181270486113368202651
590516635187402901819769393767785292872210955041292579257381
866058450150552502749947718831293104576980909153046133594190
302588132059322774443852550466779024518697062627788891979580
423065750615669834695617797879659201644051939960716981112615
195610276283233982579142332172696144374438105648552934887634
921030988702878745323313253212267863328370279250997499694887
759369159176445880327183847402359330203748885067557065879194
611341932307814854436454375113207098606390746417564121635042
388002967808558670370387509410769821183765499205204368255854
642288502429963322685369124648550007559166402472924071645072
531967449995294484347419021077296068205581309236268379879519
661997982855258871610961365617807456615924886608898164568541
721362920846656279131478466791550965154310113538586208196875
836883595577893914545393568199609880854047659073589728989834
250471289184162658789682185380879562790399786294493976054675
348212567501215170827371076462707124675321024836781594000875
05452543537
is a prime number and it is also illegal. The above prime number is DeCSS executable number that can be used to break CSS encryption on CDs.
Ok, ok, I get it, all of these huge numbers and strange acronyms are going over your head but this isn't the only evidence that the recording industry has lost its mind.
Do you remember the case of Jammie Thomas? That is the woman that lost her court case and had to pay the RIAA an obscene amount of money. There are a couple of interesting points that came out of that case. First the RIAA never proved that anyone actually downloaded any of the songs that she put on the internet. They won that case based upon the fact that someone MIGHT have downloaded some of the songs which MIGHT have resulted in a loss of revenue for them. That is right, they never actually proved that they were financially harmed, just that they might have been.
The second point coming out of this case, and in my opinion is the most crazy, is this was the first time the RIAA put forth the argument that the act of ripping a mp3 is illegal. Yes, you read that right. The RIAA now contends that taking your CDs, cassette tapes and vinyls and putting them on your computer or iPod is illegal. Don't believe me, read this exchange between a reporter and the RIAA when he was trying to get them to clarify their position.
A couple of weeks ago, Dennis Schrock wrote in the Freeman Courier about how he recently got an iPod and has over the last several weeks been placing all his CDs onto it. I doubt that he was aware that he was publicly announcing that he was a criminal. If you are reading this Mr. Schrock, Jamie Thomas was fined $9250.00 per song, but I am pretty sure that the RIAA would be willing to accept cash, check or major credit card.
Now show of hands, how many of you are criminals because you listen to music either on your computer or iPod?
I will end with this thought. Since corporations are considered individuals in the eyes of the law, do you think we can get the RIAA committed mentally incompetent and have it locked up?
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12 comments:
I propose that we lock all of the RIAA lawyers in a room and force them to draw a Venn diagram of their arguments. Their heads should explode after about five mintues.
(I find your site from Shamus's)
I don't listen to music on my ipod. I listen to the noise my headphones make.
Wow, I had no clue putting CD's that I PAID for on my iPod was illegal. That's just mindblowingly stupid. I'm pretty much at a loss for words.
I hope you know some good lawyers that work cheap.
However you are right that they are crazy, but they are still probably going to sue you.
Steve T.
I can just see those little RIAA lawyers right now, putting the code numbers into "Google" and searching to see just who has published them on their websites, blogs, etc. Geez, people, why can't they go out and take down the real criminals in this world - you know... murderers, criminals, rapists, child molesters, etc. Worry about real crime, not who has what downloaded on his/her MP3 player/computer. Morons, every one of them.
As the only person left in America who doesn't have an iPod or some other mp3 player (or a cell phone for that matter), I can only respond with disgust on behalf of America, the formerly free country that I call home. When did life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness turn into commercialism, greed and the pursuit of frivilous lawsuits?
The waters get even murkier when the concept of "educational copies" come into play, examples of which I burn every which way in order to have immediate access to teaching examples in class.
And, I do dearly love (by which I mean, "find totally loathsome") that in the modern age, people literally go to jail for - what? Not COMMITTING the crime, no, but for lying about it, or for creating the circumstances in which the crime MIGHT have been committed. This is, after all, how both Martha Stewart and "Scooter" Libby were found guilty. What next? Do we fall back on the long-thought-dead argument that, by wearing a short skirt, a woman created the circumstances in which rape might happen? "Hey, she was ASKIN' for it!" (*shudder!*)
I just have to say "I am not a crook!"
Peace
I read this article a while ago:
http://www.turnergreen.com/publications/Tehranian_Infringement_Nation.pdf
It's all about how we routinely break copyright law without even realizing it. He goes through one day in the life of a law professor (guess who wrote the paper?) and finds that he committed "eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million" If extrapolated to a yearly number, it works out to $4.544 billion a year.
And this is without even considering filesharing and mp3s.
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Three words.. I love it!
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