Prof. Newby's DVD Page

'... such is the opinion of the Office of University Counsel. The Copyright Act, as amended in 1998, provides that "No person shall...offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technolgy, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that ...is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Consequently, and immediately, you should cease making DeCSS available in conjunction with University duties and/or through use of University resources. Specifically, and in response to your inquiries, it is not appropriate for you to make DeCSS accessible to students, on your web-based syllabus or otherwise; to put copies of DeCSS in the library (a step that would merely shift to the library the violation of the statute), or to maintain notes from past classes dealing with the files in such a manner that they make DeCSS accessible to others.' (From Email from David M Parker in UNC Legal Counsel's office, sent April 11 2000.)

August-September 2000: The MPAA now thinks Linking is Illegal

Email complaint of August 29 from the MPAA, saying that I must remove links from my class Web pages. Here's Newby's commented version. This time, the UNC legal counsel sided with me, and "respectfully declined" to cause the links to be removed. (In other words, UNC didn't censor me this time.)
Here is a link to Dr. David Touretzky's collection of DeCSS in many variant forms: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/index.html. He has not received any letters from the MPAA, at last check. Updated February 25: Here's Slashdot coverage of his response to the MPAA letter, which is available here. For reasons unknown, the MPAA's lawyers actually sent a letter to Touretsky. In my case, they only sent it to the UNC administration.

March-April 2000: Newby is censored by UNC

What I Want: Next Steps Post-Censorship. Suggestions for policy change at UNC (April 23 2000).
Taking the High Road: CSS Issues (essay, March 27 2000)
April 12 Press Release: Professor Ordered to Remove DVD Software; MPAA Letter Spurs Action by UNC Legal Counsel
The original email complaint sent to UNC (slightly reformatted to wrap lines; no words were changed or added). Newby's comments on the MPAA letter, interspersed with the letter (March 16 2000)
The News and Observer covered the story here (April 24 2000)
This was covered in a Slashdot.org article, but was not on the main page so didn't get too many responses (April 12 2000).

External Resources

Many locations are doing a thorough job of tracking the events surrounding the MPAA's actions. Some key links to the DVD saga include:

This is key: the brief filed by Martin Garbus, 2600's lawyer. He lays out arguments against DVD, the DMCA and in favor of fair use. It's an argument I wish I had in dealing with UNC's legal counsel.
Cryptome's excellent collection of documents relating to the MPAA DVD cases.
Essay on copyright by L. Ray Patterson. Argues, among other things, that contemporary judges and Congress ignore the actual meaning and purpose of copyright.
The Openlaw Forum, in The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at The Harvard Law School, has a discussion forum concerning legal challenges to the MPAA's position and to the Digital Millennnium Copyright act
LiViD, the Linux Video project, based in Germany
2600.com, the Web site of a print magazine. 2600 is a defendant in the NY court case
Text of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PL 105-304) via the EFF. Section 1201 is what the MPAA referenced in their letter to UNC and others.
DVD Playing HOWTO.