Mr. Bad breaks it down:

Hey, so, I've been really mad about the recent spate of horrible witch hunts by the MPAA against people who use, distribute, or even LINK TO sites that distribute DeCSS, a piece of software used for playing DVDs on Linux. The MPAA has got a bee in their bonnet about this DeCSS. They think it's good for COPYING DVDs, which, in fact, it's totally useless for. But they're suing everybody ANYWAYS, the bastardos! Go look at OpenDVD.org to find out lots more about this really despicable travesty.

Anyways, I feel like I need to do something. I've been talking about the the whole travesty here on Pigdog Journal, of course, and helped with the big flier campaign here in SF and everything, but I feel like I should do something more, like help redistribute the DeCSS software.

There are a lot of problems with this, obviously. First and foremost, Pigdog Journal is a collaborative effort, and I don't want to bring down the legal shitstorm on the rest of the Pigdoggers just because I'm a Free Software fanatic. Also, I'm a total chicken, and don't want to go to court.

So, I decided that if I couldn't distribute DeCSS, I would distribute DeCSS. Like, I could distribute another piece of software called DeCSS, that is perfectly legal in every way, and would be difficult for even the DVD-CCA's lawyers to find fault with.

So that's what I'm doing. I wrote a small utility called "DeCSS" that strips Cascading Style Sheet tags from an HTML document. Yes, agreed, that's pretty much USELESS, but what the fuck. Maybe somebody wants to do that. AND it makes the name of the software much more plausible.

Let me make this absolutely clear: THE LINKS BELOW DO NOT GO TO THE DeCSS SOFTWARE FOR DVDS. You cannot find that software on this site. This is a completely DIFFERENT DeCSS. Same name, different software. Go ahead and download the software and check it out. A cursory review will show that it's not the same software at all.

I encourage you to distribute DeCSS on your Web site, if you have one. I think of this as kind of an "I am Spartacus" type thing. If lots of people distribute DeCSS on their Web sites, on Usenet newsgroups, by email, or whatever, it'll provide a convenient layer of fog over the OTHER DeCSS. I figure if we waste just FIVE MINUTES of some DVD-CCA Web flunkey's time looking for DeCSS, we've done some small service for The Cause.

[And a brief note for said Web flunkey: d00d, what are you DOING? How can you possibly be doing this job of searching around the Web and pointing fingers at people for trying to distribute free software? What is the matter with you? Have you no respect for the many hackers that have come before you, who built up this Web that is making you a living? How can you participate in this ugly, ugly action? If you feel you need to do it to keep your job, think again. Send email, and I'll personally help you to find a better job, with better pay, and WAY better karma. You need to walk away from this crappy gig while you still have some scrap of dignity. Hell, if you walk away, you can be a HERO! Think about that for a second, man!]

Anyways, so, DeCSS. The first version is version 0.05, and is available at one of the links below. You'll need perl 5.x, of course, but you probably knew that already. There's installation instructions in the README file in the packages.

Distribution packages for version 0.05:

• decss.tar.gz, a tar'red and gzip'ped version for all kinds of Unix-like systems

• decss.zip a zip'ped version for Windows 95 and Windows 98 and Windows NT and Windows 2000 and whatever

The software is (C) 2000, Mr. Bad of Pigdog Journal, (http://www.pigdog.org/). It's distributed under the Artistic License, the same license that perl is distributed under. PLEASE mirror this software on your Web site! Send it where you want! Use a skywriting plane to print out the code in smoke!

If you don't feel like copying the DeCSS code to your machine, just link to this page, "http://www.pigdog.org/decss/". That's something you could get in big trouble for for the other DeCSS software, what with the hysterical attitude of the MPAA and all.

For an extra-fancy link, why not use this handy "DeCSS Now!" button?

Just add this fancy HTML to your Web page:

<p align="center"><a href="http://www.pigdog.org/decss/"><img border="0" width="100" height="42" alt="DeCSS Now!" src="http://www.pigdog.org/images/decss-now.png"></a></p>

Start spreadin' the love, eh? And FUCK the MPAA.