In California, the Court of Appeal for the 6th Appellate District in San Jose has ruled that the program DeCSS can no longer be considered a trade secret. The court also ruled that a lower courts' judgement that barred its publication violated the first amendment of the US Constitution.

This current ruling centers around Andrew Bunner. Andrew posted the DeCSS code on his website in late 1999. The DVD Copy Control Association responded by suing Andrew for allegedly violating their intellectual property rights and trade secrets.

The DVD Copy Control Association scored an early victory, forcing him to remove the code and leaving him open to serious civil charges. However, his lawyers appealed, stating that by the time Andrew posted the code, it had been so widely circulated that it was no longer a trade secret. The appeals court agreeded.

"The preliminary injunction...burdens more speech than necessary to protect DVD CCA's property interest and was an unlawful prior restraint upon Bunner's right to free speech," the three-judge panel wrote in its decision.

The DeCSS case has maintained a long history. DeCSS, or Decrypt Content Scrambling System, was originally developed by Jon Lech Johansen in Norway. The program was created because at the time, DVD playing software did not exist for Linux machines. The program became a smashing success, finding its way to all corner of the Internet.

However, the copyright industry was not pleased with this situation. At the behest of the MPAA, the Norwegian Economic Crime unit unsuccessfully tried to sue Jon. After a lengthy trial and appeal process, Jon was cleared of all charges.

News.com point out that this ruling has no Bering on the current 321 Studios DVD Copying ruling, no does it allow an individual to post the DeCSS program or code online. Both these circumstances were ruled under the DMCA, while todays ruling in favor of Adrew Bunner was ruled under California's Trade Secret laws.

The DVD Copy Control Association is considering an appeal.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
Legal/Courtroom :: Court Rulings/Decisions
Technology News :: DRM

You can discuss this article here