DeCSS haiku is a 465-stanza haiku poem written in 2001 by American hacker Seth Schoen as part of the protest action regarding the prosecution of Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen for co-creating the DeCSS software. The poem, written in the spirit of civil disobedience against the DVD Copy Control Association, argues that "code is speech".
History and significance
DeCSS haiku was created in the context of a series of protests, coming from the international hacker community, against the arrest of Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen, and a series of related lawsuits against him and other hackers (such as Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes and DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Bunner). Johansen, a Norwegian teenage programmer, was one of the creators of the freely distributed DeCSS software which could be used to bypass DVD encryption, preventing even legally-acquired DVDs on running on unauthorized computers (which at that time included all Linux machines). Johansen and others who reposted the code, including the hacker 2600 magazine, were sued by the entertainment industry for revealing a trade secret and facilitating illegal copying and distribution of content on said DVDs.
Seth Schoen's goal was to provide tangible proof for the argument that "source code is speech" and hence should be given the same legal protections as free speech. A number of other activists, in the spirit of civil disobedience, created works of arts containing the infringing code, on the principle that such works are subject to First Amendment principle within the United States. Schoen decided to create a poem, which he did in 2001. At first, Schoen released the poem anonymously, through he has publicly acknowledged its ownership since.
The 465-stanza haiku transcodes the DeCSS software, in effect allowing most computer programmers to recreate the DeCSS software from scratch, using the haiku as their only reference. This can be illustrated by the following short excerpt
At another point, the poem discloses a six-digit master key to the CSS code that the entertainment industry lawyers considered a proprietary trade secret:
E. Gabriella Coleman noted: "in formally comparing code to poetry in the medium of a poem, Schoen displays a playful form of clever and recursive rhetoric valued among hackers; he also articulates the meaning of the First Amendment and software." David S. Touretzky in turn described this work as "ingenious poem... both a commentary on the DeCSS situation and a correct and complete description of the descrambling algorithm. Truly inspired."
His work has been described as one of the most notable example of DeCSS-inspired hacker art/code. It was covered by the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired and the New York Times Magazine.