Verio stands firm in DeCSS row

Cryptome has unexpected ally

By Linda Harrison in New York • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 25th January 2001 08:32 GMT

Understand how application security is evolving

US ISP Verio has refused to remove a Website which allegedly shows DVD-cracking techniques.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent a letter to Verio in November claiming the site Cyptome.org had illegally posted DeCSS. IT demanded the ISP remove the offending code, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Instead, Verio yesterday sent John Young, the administrator of free speech site Cryptome, a letter of its own and asked him to answer the charges.

The company, a subsidiary of NTT Communications, told Young that if he agreed to its demands, and as long as the MPAA didn't try and sue him, it would not make him take the material down or block access to his site.

Young did as Verio asked and sent the company a letter saying he had not broken the law - he claimed he posted a now-sealed document containing the code for CSS, the system DeCSS is designed to crack, CNET reports.

But Verio may have a fight on its hands - the MPAA has already sued several sites for putting the DVD cracking code on the Net.

DeCSS was designed by a Norwegian teenager simply as a means to let people play DVDs on Linux-powered machines. But the solution busts the code protecting copyrighted DVDs and so has obvious piracy. implications. ®