The circumvention of CSS copy protection has been argued for as a fair act of intellectual curiosity; that people should be able to peer under the hood of the things they have purchased to see what makes them tick. Certain acts of reverse engineering are protected by the DCMA; this does not include reverse engineering with the intent to circumvent technical security measures. Whether or not the CSS algorithm was uncovered by legal or illegal means, it is not the discovery that caused the problem, but its distribution of the knowledge to the public at large via the Internet.

The most potentially damaging act regarding DeCSS was sharing the information. Some have argued that an inviolable imperative for the free flow of information exists; however the law recognizes certain bounds on information flow in matters which concern national security, trade secrecy and personal privacy. The potential for commercial harm exists and the MPAA and DVD-CCA clearly thought it was important to keep this information a secret. If the flow of information may be shown to be significantly and unjustly harmful, then one’s right to distribute that information may be restricted.

Some view DeCSS as a form of social protest. Its distribution fights against what people consider an unjust system. For some this is clearly an excuse to take things for their own enjoyment while blaming the producer of the material for forcing them to do so. As protest it is effective, though perhaps hypocritical. Regardless, protesters must face the consequences if it is decided that they do not have society’s best interests at heart.

The ethical status of the creation and distribution of DeCSS hinges on be whether the harm to the movie industry and society at large outweighs the benefit of the knowledge. This is a difficult question since the benefits and harms are largely theoretical at this time. Potential benefits include stronger copy protection schemes or better copyright management strategies in the future. Harms are also merely potential since personal copying of DVDs is currently too expensive and laborious to be widely practiced.

Regardless of the ethics of DeCSS, the genie is out of the bottle. What happens now? Unfortunately, CSS only requires a piece of software to circumvent. Now that DeCSS has been written, the costs of copying and distribution are negligible, and anyone with an Internet connection can do so in ways that are difficult to catch and punish. If DeCSS does really have the potential to harm the movie industry, forestalling that harm will require inventive technical measures or large-scale enforcement efforts.