Like other researchers who've backed down for fears of Hollywood reprisals, open-source guru Bruce Perens said he would not include details about how to circumvent DVD player controls in a presentation on Friday.
Perens is still scheduled to speak on the topic of digital rights management and open source activities at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002 in San Diego. But under pressure from his employer, Hewlett-Packard, which worried that he would run afoul of digital copyright laws, he will not give a demonstration.
As part of his speech, Perens had planned to show the audience how to modify a DVD player to play time-zone-restricted European DVDs that are designed to not work in U.S. players. However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits making available information on how to circumvent copyright controls.
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