State high court to hear DVD decryption case
By The Associated Press
02.22.02
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SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court entered the entertainment arena Feb. 20, agreeing to hear a case permitting Internet surfers to share software enabling the copying and playing of DVDs on computers.
The high court did not indicate when it would hear the closely watched case involving a decoding program for digital versatile discs. Nor did the court comment on the case, which stems from a San Jose-based state appeals court which ruled in November that it was a "prior restraint" to prohibit the posting of the encryption-breaking code on the Internet.
The 6th District Court of Appeal lifted an injunction prohibiting Andrew Bunner of San Francisco from posting the decryption software, a move that the DVD Copy Control Association, an industry group, said was akin to giving crooks the technology to reproduce protected material — such as movies — en mass.
The association controls a program named the content scramble system, or CSS, which prevents unauthorized use of a movie recorded on DVD. A Norwegian teen-ager in 1999 posted a program giving users of the Linux computer operating system the codes to play or reproduce DVD's on computers. Others, including Bunner, posted that program on various Web sites.
The association sued Bunner and others under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, a California law designed to protect trade secrets.
The court of appeal, in overturning a San Jose judge's order forbidding the posting of the code, ruled that protecting trade secrets is not as important as "the First Amendment right to freedom of speech."
Last year, meanwhile, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said postings of the decryption program violated the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The court ruled in November that Eric Corley, operator of the 2600 Magazine Web site, had to remove links to a DVD decryption program called DeCSS.
Corley's attorneys had argued at trial that publishing the program was protected as free speech and their client was merely covering the news value of the technological development by posting the code.
The case the Supreme Court agreed to review Feb. 20 is DVD Control Association v. Bunner. The 2nd U.S. Circuit case, decided in November, is Universal City Studios Inc. v. Corley.
Previous
DVD-hacking technology is 'pure speech,' rules California court
Appellate judges find Andrew Bunner had First Amendment right to publish links to DeCSS software.
11.02.01
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